# What Did We Do Before VHS? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 23, 2007, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196 "2007-05-23T08:16:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/61 "2007-05-24T20:56:58Z")
In the \*old \* days, popular old movies were reshown in movie theatres!! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/62 "2007-05-24T23:45:19Z")
What did we do before sliced bread and the wheel? ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/63 "2007-05-25T00:06:30Z")
You waited for a decade before a show you saw once, was on again. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/64 "2007-05-25T01:22:58Z")
[All you ever wanted to know about pre-VHS/Beta videotape formats.](http://www.labguysworld.com/index.html) Note that most of the machines/formats on that site were non-broadcast quality and intended for industrial rather than home usage. I find it incredible that that guy actually _owns_ all those machines. More that 110 VTRs, by my count. (I’m guessing he’s not married!) [Here’s a somewhat more sophisticated (British) site](http://www.totalrewind.org/mainhall.htm) dedicated specifically to home formats. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/65 "2007-05-25T05:26:05Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] the Adventure game I played was on a station hooked up to a big mainframe. I saw “Star Trek” games for both mainframe and lab computers at college, and life was small enough for a lab computer. None of these were the then-really-primitive Video Games. By “Lab Computer” I mean something small enough for an individual lab – a desktop computer that generaly didn’t really look or act like a modern PC. Some of these were DEC computers with actual tapes. By 1980 or slightly after you had Commodores that had Breakout and other games on them. Before 1983 you had small lab computers that actually ran pretty decent monochrome versions of PacMan (lots better than the crappy “Video Game” version they marketed circa 1982) By 1984 you had Macs, with stuff like Lode-Runner on them. [/QUOTE] I wrote a Star Trek game (translated into Pascal from Basic from Dave Ahl’s book of Basic games) in 1975 or so. It ran on a PDP11/20 with 28K of memory. I added stuff to it, and it was quite popular in our group - and was the standard demo program. I still have it - if you have a way of reading Dectapes. 🙂 I taped **The Trouble with Tribbles** the first time it was on. With a little cassette player. It was for a girl I wanted to go out with, one of the world’s first Trekkies. And one more vote for 16 mm movies. I remember going to a birthday party where a movie was shown, sometime around 1960. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/66 "2007-05-25T05:53:28Z")
Although it was before I got old enough to even think about it, all the towns had seedy movie theaters, mostly in a sleazy part of town. I’m guessing the problem was that you could be seen walking into said establishment. The privacy of one’s own home was a godsend. And what, the internet wasn’t driven by one-handed typing? ---
**Author:** ![zuma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9c0ed/32.png) [@zuma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zuma)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/67 "2007-05-25T08:53:06Z")
[QUOTE=Hal Briston] _Thank_ you. When I typed the line about Monster Week and Planet Of The Apes Week, I had originally had Godzilla Week in there as well. Then when I noticed that that wasn’t mentioned on the site I linked, I started wondering if _that_ was Monster Week. But then I remembered watching all the old Karloff/Lugosi/Chaney Jr. flicks on _The 4:30 Movie_ as well, so _that_ must’ve been Monster Week. And then I said “Awww, screw it…” and posted it the way it was. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Ha! We had the 3:30 movie. My favorite was the Vincent Price/Edgar Allen Poe weeks. I also remember the Planet of the Apes weeks as well. Those were always popular. Then creature features late at night (must have been friday or saturday nights). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/68 "2007-05-25T12:02:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Then creature features late at night (must have been friday or saturday nights). Living in the NYC Metropolitan area, I had the advantage of not only the three majot networks plus PBS, but also WNEW, WPIX, and WWOR independent stations. Each of them (and the majors as well, at times) showed plenty of old flicks, and old monster flicks. WNEW had **Creature Feature** , WWOR had **Supernatural Theater** and **Million Dollar Movie** (which, despite the title, usually showed things like **The Crawling Eye**.), and WPIX had **Chiller Theater** , which, for a while in the 1960s featured horror host extraordinaire John Zacherley interriupting the movies with asides in a proto-MST3K kind of way. I think Chiller Theater must have OWNED copies of their cheap films – they showed them so often: **The Cyclops The Ape Man Attack of the 50-Foot Woman The Cape Canaveral Monsters Voodoo Island The Creeping Unknown The Black Sleep Killers from Space** ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/69 "2007-05-25T12:07:42Z")
WDCA, a UHF station in DC, had the creature feature thing as well. Later on they had a kung fu action theater as well. And there was the call-in video game contests too. Only it was using an Intellivision I think. I miss cheesy, locally-owned broadcasting. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/70 "2007-05-25T12:43:52Z")
[QUOTE=TokyoPlayer] Although it was before I got old enough to even think about it, all the towns had seedy movie theaters, mostly in a sleazy part of town. [/QUOTE] Are there still adult movie theaters? Smack in the center of the business district of the lower-middle-class neighborhood where I grew up was the “Capri Art Theater”. Although the movies it played were never announced on the marquee, all of us kids knew it was a porno theater. There was a disclaimer on the door that claimed films shown were for “medical and educational purposes only”, or something like that. In the early 1980s, [this](http://bkmarcus.com/foundart/19.jpg) was how many kids got their first exposure to porn. (link safe for work) ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/71 "2007-05-25T12:51:34Z")
[QUOTE=elmwood] In the early 1980s, [this](http://bkmarcus.com/foundart/19.jpg) was how many kids got their first exposure to porn. (link safe for work) [/QUOTE] I remember that. “A boob! I definitely saw a boob!” Then from upstairs: “GO TO BED!” ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/72 "2007-05-25T13:28:07Z")
[QUOTE=Hypno-Toad] I remember that. “A boob! I definitely saw a boob!” Then from upstairs: “GO TO BED!” [/QUOTE] That scrambling was oh so tempting, it would actually clear up for a few seconds once in a while. ---
**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/73 "2007-05-25T16:10:50Z")
In the begining was Ampex. I went to school for their two inch tape on reel to reels (as well as Marconi cameras.) Beta and the larger tape Betamax (used in the broadcast industry) came out followed by VHS. (This may be incorrect but I understand Sony patented both formats and licensed VHS because it had inferior resolution (that part is true.) About that time came the laser disc with even superior resolution but bulky LP size [del]disks[/del] discs. Also the drop out rate, lost video, was larger. RCA came out with vinyl video LPs. They were not popular. [http://www.kempa.com/blog/archives/000951.html](http://www.kempa.com/blog/archives/000951.html) VHS became popular because the amount of time on one tape was very much larger. People could (with the worst resolution imaginable) tape more than one movie on VHS. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/74 "2007-05-25T16:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=Will Repair] Beta and the larger tape Betamax (used in the broadcast industry) came out followed by VHS. (This may be incorrect…) [/QUOTE] Yes, it is incorrect. [Betacam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam), the broadcast Beta format, came out in 1982, and used the same tape cassette as the consumer Betamax format (introduced in 1975), but was otherwise entirely incompatible with it. DigitBeta, which uses a larger cassette, was introduced in 1993. ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/75 "2007-05-25T16:28:38Z")
Marconi _cameras_?? There’s one I never heard of. I’m also under the impression that Sony developed VHS (from it’s 3/4" system). Professional versions were developed from Betamax and VHS. The Betacam format quickly became standard. The pro incarnation of VHS, the M format sucked so much they went back to the drawing board and developed MII, which worked, sort of (I remember our tape machine engineer having to add a whole circuit board to the MII machines to fix a recurring glitch that would give the whole raster a green or lavender tint for a second or two). ---
**Author:** ![BJMoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5fc32e/32.png) [@BJMoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJMoose)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2007, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/76 "2007-05-25T16:33:55Z")
[QUOTE=commasense] Yes, it is incorrect. [Betacam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam), the broadcast Beta format, came out in 1982, and used the same tape cassette as the consumer Betamax format (introduced in 1975), but was otherwise entirely incompatible with it. DigitBeta, which uses a larger cassette, was introduced in 1993. [/QUOTE] The L-750 cassette would give you two hours in a Betamax (at Beta II speed), twenty minutes in a Betacam. They eventually developed a huge cassette for Betacam that would run an hour. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/77 "2007-05-26T03:14:21Z")
Sure do value my remote control. When we first got our Betamax, I can remember using a long cane pole to push the pause button to edit out the commercials when I was recording. When I first heard about home videos, the very idea of possessing my very own copy of _Casablanca_ made me heady. Does anyone remember when “Home Box Office” offered movies for our viewing jpleasure almost as soon as they left the theaters? (That was before PPV.) ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Handsome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@Gus\_Handsome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Handsome)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2007, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/78 "2007-05-26T05:13:53Z")
[QUOTE=Smitty] Jerked off to magazines? 😃 [/QUOTE] I like your brutal honesty, LOL Thanks, I was having a shitty day and really needed a laugh 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Handsome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@Gus\_Handsome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Handsome)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2007, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/79 "2007-05-26T05:22:32Z")
I’ve enjoyed reading all the posts, nice going down memory lane. Made me think of the pre-remote days when “I” was the remote. My older brother would make me stand beside the big console RCA (after my parents went out), and make me his personal remote. If I didn’t change the channel on command, I got a beating, LOL I was sooo happy the day dad brought home that brown box (Gerald or whatever it was called) It had a wire on it, and from then on, it was no looking back. The lazy revolution had begun 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2007, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196/80 "2007-05-26T08:24:25Z")
[QUOTE=Pushkin] In the early days of the series, the BBC junked a lot of the video tapes it kept episodes of the series Doctor Who on, for various reasons. [/quote] The main reason is that video tape was expensive and can be reused. Before home video systems were common, they thought that there would be no market for the old episodes, and recycled the tapes. It wasn’t just Doctor Who, a lot of great TV was destroyed. > [@](#): > > When an audit on tapes was carried out and a lot of stories were found missing, several fans came forward with the entire sound track for an episode taped from the TV broadcast or even some film footage taken from a home cine camera facing the TV screen. > [Obligatory Wikipedia article.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_Missing_Episodes) [/quote] Actually, telerecording is a complex process, beyond the means of the home viewer. It was only ever done by the studios. [Kinescope - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telerecording) Most of the recovered episodes were from foreign TV stations who bought copies of the episodes for broadcast. Few were in private hands. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-we-do-before-vhs/405196.md?page=5)