Mine was an RCA SelectaVision - a VHS - and it cost me about $1,000. Circa 1977 or so. Loved that machine, and I picked VHS solely because of the extra record time. Mine gave me six hours, despite what the ad says.

Those machines were great and although I no longer use them, I still have two of them that work. 

Radiowiz wrote:

Well since my TV today is doing fine with digital storage, I'd rather have some classic video game entertainment, and oh, look at this! What's old is new again!! 


 

I have one of those consoles with some old game cartridges upstairs somewhere. The other makes were bigger but Intellivision was a lot of fun in its day. 

Our World was a terrific documentary series with a lot of history and a touch of commentary and wry smiles. The hosts - Ray Gandolf and Linda Ellerbee - were both terrific. The show examined a famous historic incident or a year way before there was a History Channel. And the writing and the video they chose were great. 

I taped them all on my then still new VHS VCR while I was working nights at CKEY. Unfortunately, I think it was on for one season opposite the Cosby Show on NBC and got compeltely wiped out by that juggernaut. At least it was fairly cheap counter programming which cost ABC almost nothing 

I still have my copies somewhere, but they're pretty washed out. 

Fortunately, some episodes are preserved on The Internet Archive and you can see them here for free. YouTube also has some excerpts although I don't think they have an entire show in one place. 

RadioActive wrote:

I have one of those consoles with some old game cartridges upstairs somewhere. The other makes were bigger but Intellivision was a lot of fun in its day. 

The newer system has an HDMI port for much easier hook up. That's the main difference. 
 

I was only making $12,000 a year at the time as a newcomer fresh out of college at CKEY. (I later got a raise after getting a hostage taker on the phone for an exclusive interview, something cops were not happy about!) 

But the moment I saw a home VCR, I knew it was a must have for me. I'd been waiting for something like that for years and when it finally came out, I didn't hesitate. I bought it at a place called Videoland at Bathurst & Wilson. It was around 1977 and just before the video rental craze. I was working nights in the newsroom and missing all my favourite shows.

I later got a new one and sold the RCA to my best friend for a small amount. But it was a great machine and at the time, exactly what I'd always been looking for. 

I'm just sorry they didn't invent them earlier. Imagine all the live shows lost to history that could have been preserved if VCRs were around in the 50s. Retrontario's Ed Conroy would have so much to uncover, he'd have to hire a full staff of people working 24 hours a day to screen it all!

Radioactive - I tried to quote your post but for some reason was unable to.

Anyways...

Close - but Videoland was on the north side of Wilson west of Dufferin. I know 'cause' I "worked" there for a while.

I bought my Quasar VCR for (what I recall) close to $1200.00. It was a tank but I used to loan it to friends on occasion as long as it was they who carried it. And when I say "I worked there" I had became quite friendly with the owner who worked at that location and I used to get, or at least I wanted to believe I was getting, deals on buying blank cassettes, ten at a time (when they were priced at +$20.00 a piece individually elsewhere). When his employee at his store on Yonge Street, a few storefronts north of Wellesley on the west side, quit without notice, I spent a week there selling blank cassettes, etcetera. I was between real jobs at the time and after that experience/exposure to retail sales and the people such a job "attracts" I knew it was nothing I ever wanted to do full time.

DeepTracks wrote:

Radioactive - I tried to quote your post but for some reason was unable to.

Anyways...

Close - but Videoland was on the north side of Wilson west of Dufferin. I know 'cause' I "worked" there for a while.

I bought my Quasar VCR for (what I recall) close to $1200.00. It was a tank but I used to loan it to friends on occasion as long as it was they who carried it. And when I say "I worked there" I had became quite friendly with the owner who worked at that location and I used to get, or at least I wanted to believe I was getting, deals on buying blank cassettes, ten at a time (when they were priced at +$20.00 a piece individually elsewhere). When his employee at his store on Yonge Street, a few storefronts north of Wellesley on the west side, quit without notice, I spent a week there selling blank cassettes, etcetera. I was between real jobs at the time and after that experience/exposure to retail sales and the people such a job "attracts" I knew it was nothing I ever wanted to do full time.

Small world! I wonder if we met. I recall it being at Bathurst and Wilson but it was a long time ago. I think the owner was a guy named George, who was quite a character. I remember looking at something and I didn't know what it was. I asked him, "what is that?"

His immediate response: "It's something you should buy!"

DeepTracks wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

DeepTracks wrote:

Radioactive - I tried to quote your post but for some reason was unable to.

Anyways...

Close - but Videoland was on the north side of Wilson west of Dufferin. I know 'cause' I "worked" there for a while.

I bought my Quasar VCR for (what I recall) close to $1200.00. It was a tank but I used to loan it to friends on occasion as long as it was they who carried it. And when I say "I worked there" I had became quite friendly with the owner who worked at that location and I used to get, or at least I wanted to believe I was getting, deals on buying blank cassettes, ten at a time (when they were priced at +$20.00 a piece individually elsewhere). When his employee at his store on Yonge Street, a few storefronts north of Wellesley on the west side, quit without notice, I spent a week there selling blank cassettes, etcetera. I was between real jobs at the time and after that experience/exposure to retail sales and the people such a job "attracts" I knew it was nothing I ever wanted to do full time.

Small world! I wonder if we met. I recall it being at Bathurst and Wilson but it was a long time ago. I think the owner was a guy named George, who was quite a character. I remember looking at something and I didn't know what it was. I asked him, "what is that?"

His immediate response: "It's something you should buy!"

That sounds like him for sure and nothing is outside the realm of possibility! "He" was a character without any doubt and the thing is I too can't recall his name. And I worked for him and called him a friend. Wow - what's that say about me?

Between Videoland and Majestic Electronics, on Dufferin north of Lawrence on the east side (in a hole-in-the-wall store before their expansion) almost all of my money went into their cash registers.
 

It was all new, it was all exciting, and it was expensive. But I never regretted buying that first VCR. It was exactly what I always wanted. In fact, I waited a lot longer than I should have to get my first DVR, since I was reluctant to give up something I knew worked for something I wasn't sure about at first. 

Would never go back now (it was no fun keeping track of what you'd put on each tape and trying to figure how many more hours one of them could hold when you were setting the thing for the next day) but it was exciting in the early days. 

I owned a lot of VHS machines over the years, because they would eventually start eating tapes and I was tired of the repair costs. My favourite one came with a remote that you could actually set the timer from, including channel time and length and then transmit it to the machine. We're all used to that now, but back then, when you otherwise had to literally go to the VCR to set everything, it was a real revelation!

I bought my first VCR in 1985, mainly because I worked days as a rookie copy writer and wanted to watch Coronation Street, which then ran in the afternoons, and David Letterman, which was on late at night.

My first was an RCA model which amazingly had on screen programming. It was a breeze to set up my recordings.

It was the first of many VCRs I had over the next 20 years. I finally got a DVR in the mid 2000s. It was an RCA Scenium and I had to go to the States to buy it because it wasn't available here.

As soon as my then TV provider (Star Choice) offered a DVR I opted in to that.

My current DVR, provided by Bell Fibe, has been pretty much faultless since I got it in mid 2020.

How many VCRs through the years in peoples houses always flashed "12:00"?

A lot of people had no idea how to set the time. I remember several articles over the years about the flashing "12:00" "phenomenon".