A BETAPHILES STORY

PREFACE

     This is the story of my relationship with electronics. How I became interested in it and how my life helped drive me towards becoming a Betaphile. (i.e., someone that is fascinated by the Beta format). This autobiographical presentation is going to focus just on how I became MisterBetamax.

CHAPTER ONE
     It's all my wife's fault. Back near the end of 1975 she arranged for the adoption of our first Betamax. It was an early Christmas gift for me and of course it was a SL-7200A. I had heard of the LV-1901A console VCR/TV but it was furniture. I didn't need a TV, even if it was a Trintron. And I knew a stand alone deck was coming from articles in the electronic news magazines. Plus it cost as much as a car. When I finally took ownership of the first Betamax I was impressed. It was huge, heavy (and very expensive). It sat squarely on top of our twenty-five inch console TV and it took up almost every inch. So how did my wife come to know I was interested in video recording? And why would she endorse such a major purchase?
     I was fortunate. My wife understood and supported my compassion (compulsion) with everything electronic. I was also fortunate that our home town was large enough to have several major electronics dealers. She had been with me when we looked at Sony reel-to-reel video recorders. We (more like I) had already discussed the possibility of off-the-air video recording but nothing like that existed for consumers at the time. This was almost five years prior to the Betamax. But for the whole story let's go back to the beginning and lay a little ground work that will shed some light on why my lady would endorse spending over a thousand dollars, in 70's money, on such a new and barely known technology such as Betamax.
     Growing up I was very lucky. My Dad had a television repair business. TV was still pretty new when I was a kid and I would often go along with him on his service calls. I would watch him as he took the back off the TVs and removed the tubes and checked them. I wanted to help so it wasn't long before this became my job, checking the tubes. It always seemed to impress his customers when they saw a ten year old kid using a tube checker. And what a pleasure it was for me. I never developed a fear of what was inside the TV (and how they worked). But I was mindful of that high voltage section dad warned me numerous times to watch out for. I would also spend time with him at his shop and if I was lucky, even helped out a little. I doubt he benefited much from my services but I certainly got a thrill out of it. So I developed a craving to learn all I could about the technical (electrical) mysteries of life, which included television. To expand his business and to keep up with how fast TV was growing my Dad assembled the various types of test equipment he needed. He purchased these in do-it-yourself kit form from the Heathkit Company in Benton Harbor, Michigan. They were a unique firm that offered specialty electronic test gear and home electronic devices unassembled. They provided the parts and by following their detailed instruction manuals you would build it yourself, test it, learn how it operated and then use it in your work or for pleasure. My first kit building experience was an AM radio he bought just for me, which didn't work on the first try because I had made several "cold" solder joints. These were wires that I had soldered together that looked okay but didn't get hot enough to make a good electrical connection. So Dad checked everything out and showed me where I had made a few mistakes. After I corrected them it worked. Let me tell you something, nothing inspires a kid more than putting something together from parts and having it come to life before his eyes. Over the next few years I assembled more kits and Dad was letting me build all of his test equipment. Even though those Heathkits instructions told you every step to make I was still able to pick up some knowledge of the circuits, along with a lot of confidence. It instilled in me that "can do" spirit, and I was pretty good at it. Later, when I started high school, I went right for the science, math and technical classes. I ate that stuff up! I also got into cars, drag racing and girls. It was the sixties, man... and I was good at being a teenager. About midway into my junior year fate introduced me to my wife to be. She was beyond beautiful, just over five feet tall, full of dynamite and everything a young man like me could ever dream of, or hope for.

CHAPTER TWO

      After graduation my Dad got me my first real job where he was working as an electrician. It was at the St. Louis assembly plant for the Chrysler Corporation in Fenton,Mo. (building cars on the production line). Seeing automobiles come together was fascinating. What a hoot! Chrysler cars were selling good and I was working the second shift (because I had no seniority). It was the era of affirmative action so the work force was made up of humans from every walk of life and of every color. If you wanted to work, jobs were readily available. Everybody on the line worked in harmony for nine hours a day and eight on Saturday. Time and half over 40 hours. (Just the thing for a guy saving up to get married.) And I do literally mean in harmony. As we worked we sang the current hits of the day and many from out of the past. There was no union or corporate rules that forbid it, so we did it and we loved doing it. Even our foreman joined in on a couple. We built some sweet cars back then (in 1964 building 1965 models) and our error rate was almost zero. Chyrsler like it too and later officially remarked that as long as the build standards were met or exceeded they saw nothing wrong. They liked their new recruits humming merrily along. The mid-sized muscle cars we were building were perfect for the sixties, when drag racing and drive-ins with car hops were all the rage. The only down side to all this was that I was staying in a city two hours away from my future wife. But I stayed with it long enough for her to graduate from high school and then I headed straight back to my home town to become a happily married man.
     Shortly after we found our first apartment we both set about looking for work. My wife took a full time job at fashionable clothing store were she had worked part time during her high school days. By using my high school record of science classes I was able to land a job as a laboratory assistant at a local state sponsored research facility. It was low tech. I fed the animals, cleaned their cages and mixed their food. It all had to be done on a precise schedule so not to affect the outcome. In my break time I would talk to the researchers. After this federal funded project's grant ran out I took employment running a graphics lab for a printing press manufacturer. It was during this interlude that a local radio station began running ads asking if anyone was interested in becoming a radio announcer (disk jockey) and if so, to send them an audition tape. Wow. There must have been a shortage. I thought this sounded cool and I had the recording equipment (as you might expect) to do it. So on a whim I sent them a tape of me playing records and reading news copy. So this is how I began my career as a radio hound. Turned out the station in my hometown was in a too large a market for a green horn so I couldn't get a job there. But with their endorsement I did score a gig at a small, low wattage station nearby and worked there for about a year,(to earn my chops). Once I felt worthy I sent out numerous demo tapes and landed a position at the top rocker (slang for a top 40 pop station) in a medium sized station next to a major city. It meant that the wife and I would have to move, but we were young and both willing to try new things. I spent the next seven years as the top night time DeeJay in that market, and I loved it! It was the time of the Beatles, Elvis, Woodstock, and soon, two little additions to my family (more on that later). Unfortunately, it was also the era of the Vietnam war. But I was one of the very fortunate 1-A "Kennedy marrieds" and was never called up, something I never regretted. I do, however, have great respect for those that went because it was a thankless, bitter conflict that didn't come to a very worthwhile conclusion. Many of my friends did go and I made it a point to tell them how meaningful their sacrifice was and what it meant to me and for our nation. (This is something we should all do.) Towards the end of my DeeJay days it became apparent to me that to move up (to more money and fame) would require that I become a gypsy. That is, relocating from market to market, something I was getting less willing to do now that I was a father of a beautiful little girl. So I traded in my showtime extrovert persona and tried my hand at selling radio advertising rather than doing it. This would begin the next and longest of my careers (more on that later too). So what happened to my interest in electronics during this time? I was in it with both feet and it tied in well with the radio business. Color television was becoming popular by this time so I decided to build a color TV from Heathkit. It was a challenge, great fun and when finished it worked (to everyone's amazement). Hard to believe that color TV was ever new and fascinating. To see my TV project under construction and sitting on my kitchen table click here.

CHAPTER THREE

     It was during my early disk jockey years and around the time I built the television that I became interested in the possibility of recording TV programs off-the-air. The only devices that could perform that feat at this time were large and made exclusively for the broadcast industry. There were some smaller Sony reel-to-reel machines but they only recorded an hour and of course only could handle a studio type video input source. That is, they had no tuner to pick up TV stations. Because our city was large enough to have several professional electronics stores I was able to talk with the service technicians about the Sony broadcast recorders that they were currently selling and servicing. I had purchased a small 7 inch portable black and white television made by Sony before buying the Heathkit and was very impressed with it. (I reasoned that because it was a portable, it would still be useful when I moved up to that twenty-five inch color console I was planning to build later.) So these video recorders were made by a name I recognized and respected. But how could one get these things to record TV off-the-air? The guys at the store didn't have an answer. They envisioned there were too many obstacles to overcome in making it consumer friendly. Such as maintaining proper video and audio signal levels or how to make it easy to operate. Little did we know that it was all about to be taken care of.
     I was getting into it big time now and I remember reading all the electronic equipment magazines and discovering that something was up, something big was coming. A local appliance store ran an advertisement about a video recorder and they actually had one in their store. I grabbed the wife and we rushed down to look at it. It was named "The Great Time Machine" made by Matsushita. It was really big, expensive and impractical. It did have something I liked though. The tape was held inside a cassette. No threading like with reel-to-reel recorders. Unfortunately the operation was clunky so this VX-1000 just didn't catch on. It was 1975 and this would become one of those early failed formats. Next I learned about the Sanyo V-Cord. It was smaller, less money (but still a small fortune) but it only recorded in black and white, that was a bummer. It did have a nice, smaller cassette though, something I felt was important. It was also user friendly. They sold a few of these but it never really caught on. One of the obstacles was they were in short supply and were not promoted very well. I held off buying one because of the cost and cassettes were almost unavailable. Soon I heard about something with a small handy cassette like the Sanyo unit, was in color and made by a name I already knew well, Sony. I found some information in the trade journals about a Sony television console that had a built-in video recorder. But nobody had one because they too, were in short supply. These only made it to the major cities and you had to order them, in most cases. I couldn't find one anywhere. But wait. Sony announced that they will be selling just the recorder in about six months. Before that date I dug into what this would be. All the news was good. Cassette was strong and convenient. The VCR worked as advertised and could receive the channels in my area. So it was a go. Soon as I could find where to get one I was going to find out what this thing will do. Good fortune smiled on me because my wife was running a pharmacy at this time and several vendors supplied them with appliances. She would ask their salesperson if he could locate one of these Sony VCRs. Lo and behold they had one in their warehouse, just one! He told her it was big and expensive but he would bring it with him on his next trip, even though he mused "Who or why would anyone ever want to record television programs?" Well guess what... that turned out to be just about everybody.

CHAPTER FOUR

     My wife called me at work and told me that the rep was at her store and he had the Betamax with him. He had stopped by to see if she was still interested. He felt he was doing us a favor and giving us a chance to change our minds, since it was so expensive. But I had done my homework and was satisfied it was what I wanted. We had already borrowed most of the money to pay for it so we were committed. I talked with him on the phone and made arrangements to stop by his motel that evening to pick it up. Time crawled by but finally I drove over and knocked on the door. He invited me in and showed me the unopened shipping carton sitting on the table. It was huge! He said it weighed a ton. I asked if he would mind if I examined it before completing the purchase. He agreed, saying he too, was curious, so we opened the box and checked the contents together. Next we sat the carton on the floor (it took both of us), removed the Betamax and sat it on the table. We looked it over real good and agreed it was still big, even out of the box. Upon examination everything seemed in order so I handed him the check. It was a huge amount. We were lucky that by purchasing through the company my wife worked for got us a discount off the $1495.00 suggested retail price. But even so, the draft was for $1250.00. Check this out, factoring in for inflation that 1975 money comes to a over of $7500 in 2024 dollars! What a deal! So I was now the proud owner of one of the first SL-7200A units sold in the USA. It came with one K-30 thirty minute tape. I asked if they had any more back at their warehouse and he said there were two K-60 tapes and they were mine at $12.95 each, if I wanted them. I answered in the affirmative, and please bring them on your next trip. (That works out to almost $78.00 each in today's money folks.) We boxed the VCR back up and the two of us carried it to the trunk of my car. Along the way he asked me "What are you planning to do with this thing?" I told him I wasn't sure but I felt it was going to change the way people watched television. What visionary I turned out to be.

CHAPTER FIVE

           When I got home that evening my wife was waiting to see what I had purchased. Together we packed the huge box into the house. Now she was anxious to find out about it as I was so we took it out of the carton and set it on top of the television. I got out the instruction manual and proceeded to set it up. It took about twenty minutes. When I popped in the K-30 and pressed record I had high hopes that it really would record the television program. After about five minutes I stopped the tape, hit rewind, stop, then play, and waited. Three seconds went by and what we had just watched appeared on our TV screen! It had worked. We were thrilled. We didn't know exactly why, but it was just so neat that we could record the TV station. I pressed record again and sat down to further examine the owner's manual. It seemed that unattended recordings could be made by using a clock/timer. Sony offered a companion DT-20 that would do the job, so I put it on my want list. Recording off-the-air without having to be at home! Wow, what a deal! It was going to be sooo cool. I ordered the timer which had been upgrade to the more attractive DT-30. It wasn't too long before I became curious. How did this thing manage to record video? So naturally I had no inhibition about removing the top and examining the inside. It was marvelous back then to see the interesting and unique components that went into recording a picture. I took the bottom off as well and looked at all the electronics, the big long flat belts, the various levers and all the pulleys. It was mind bending to watch it operate. Sony was on to something here. Later I began reading about how it had been accomplished using spinning heads and the conversion of the video signal. I already liked TV and Sony, but this was something entirely new to me. I was very impressed.
     I purchased the two additional tapes, had the timer and was now regularly recording programs to watch later. I was becoming an old hand at this video recording thing by now. But a situation was becoming apparent. I found that there were some programs that I wanted to keep for viewing at a much later date, or maybe even keep indefinitely (What!!!) . I began looking for blank cassettes. Suddenly I found the basic flaw with being the first to have a new technology. No tapes! I had bought the only ones available. No electronics stores, retail outlets or specialty shops had any! Or even knew what I was blabbing on about. When I asked about them, shopkeepers looked at me like I had three heads (and I don't). Even the big mail order electronics firms had none. Finally, after several months the audio/TV specialty store that I had frequented in the past said they were getting several Beta machines in and should also have some cassettes as well. In about two weeks I was able to purchase four K-60 tapes at the retail price of $16.95 each. (That $98.00 per in today's money if you're keeping score.) Great! As it turned out I was lucky to get them because I soon learned that the cassettes would be in short supply. And the store was going to be stingy! They would have to give preferential treatment to the people who had bought machines from them. I understood their point of view but I wasn't happy about it. Here I was hooked on this video recording thing and couldn't find tapes. I had run smack into Sony's first vexation with the Beta format. The video cassette supply shortage. They had not anticipated the high demand. Everybody that had a machine wanted to use it for long term time shifting. As in recording Monday through Friday and binge watching on the weekend. People had this fortune tied up in their machine and they were willing to pay dearly to use it. Cassette as we know were not cheap. To make matters worse the ones that were available didn't make it to the store shelves. They didn't stock them because they had no idea of what they were for. Sony was so busy filling orders for machines that they didn't educate the electronics retailers that they should also stock the cassettes. It took time back then for items to make it through the supply chain to the retailer. Here was another new item they needed to go along with the recorder, and stores are traditionally reluctant to surrender shelf space. No internet back then and no big box electronics stores. Mail order was by phone and you might need a catalog. It was so primitive its almost painful to compared it to today.
     I don't remember exactly how many months went by before I was able to buy tapes in any quantity. I remember scouring various sources and finding just a few here and there, buying up what I could. I won't admit to being hooked but I really enjoyed being able to set my own schedule, deciding what to watch and when and being a slave to time. Beta machines were now selling well and demand was increasing, so before long the cassette prices came down and supplies were starting to become available. Everything was going along smoothly but then a local appliance store began advertising another video format. What this? Competition for my beloved Beta? I went over and checked it out. It was the Sanyo model again except this was the upgraded version that would record up to two hours in color using a single cassette. My Betamax would do just one hour on a single K-60 cassette. It was called the V-Cord II and it used the same cassette as before. Now I began to worry. Two hours, that's twice as long as my SL-7200A. Was recording time going to be a major factor here? Was my Beta going to be overtaken by this other format? Before long Sony announced they too were introducing a two hour model, with two speeds. It was the SL-8200 and Bx2 (soon to be ) was born. This was going to compete with the new Sanyo models. But wait, yet another new format was being introduced, VHS. More formats and none were compatible with my Beta. I had confidence in the Sony brand but I didn't care much for this new added competition. This format stuff was just going to dilute the market and confuse buyers. The battle was on and little did I know this was just the tip of the iceberg. Other manufacturers were joining in, taking sides and fighting for their share of this new market. The great format war was about to begin.

CHAPTER SIX

     This VHS thing was being marketed as: The Great Time Machine. Where had I heard that name before? Wasn't that the obscure format I had looked at before buying the SL-7200A? The one from Quasar that didn't catch on due to mechanical problems and a bulky cassette design. Turned out it was the same company, but now with a different format and another bulky cassette design. But it was able to record two and four hours. Quasar was the Matsushita Company, but the VCR was being sold as made by Panasonic. Nearly identical machines using the same format were also being advertised by RCA and JVC (also made for them by Matsushita). Naturally I was more than curious about these other formats because I now had a sizable investment in my Beta collection. I felt it would be horrible should Sony loose out to some other company. In my continuing investigation I uncovered another failed format made in the early seventies called Cartrivision. It was an American made model and designed to be mounted in a cabinet. It was impractical but way ahead of its time in one earth shattering way. It was designed to be used as a movie rental system! I mention this because, little did I realize it at the time just how much this proposed cassette rental business would later impact home video recording and not in a good way either (more on that later). Sony's reaction to this marketing attack from Matsushita was to round up several big Japanese manufacturers and pull them together under the Beta banner. They were major players too: Aiwa, NEC, Toshiba and even Sanyo. They all would end up making Beta units for some big named USA companies too like Zenith, Marantz, Pioneer, Sears, Magnasonic and Radio Shack. Through this alliance Sanyo (and Toshiba) dropped their V-Cord II format and would begin to make Beta to compete with VHS. Sony heavily promoted their solid commitment to Beta. Advertising that it was here to stay and it would be the format of choice after all the dust settled. They fought back by releasing a longer tape, one that could record up to three hours in . The tape length numbers were also changed. The K-30 became an L-250, now recording thirty minutes in or one hour in . The K-60 became the L-500 at one or two hours. The new ninety minute or three hour tape was called the L-750. A new slower recording speed was also introduced in new models. It ran at half the speed of and was called . All this allowed the L-500 to do up to three hours and the L-750 to do four and a half hours. The numbering designations were different from the two and four hour recording times being used by the competition and not as easy to understand. To muddy things up further VHS also introduced a slower speed called SLP or ELP to bump their maximum recording time up to six hours. Sony countered with an L-830 tape that pushed the maximum Beta recording time to five hours in . But there is where it stopped, the time and tape speed war was over. If you still wanted more recording time there was an interesting solution, from Sony.

CHAPTER SEVEN

      I remember going over to a friends house and him showing me a device sitting on top of his SL-8200. It allowed more that one cassette to be recorded unattended in his machine. I was very interested. He informed me that Sony was offering these to the public for $75.00 ($450 in 2024), all I had to do was call them and order one. I thought it was neat and when I got back home I made that call. They said that they were test marketing the AG-120 changer and would appreciate my inputk, and did I want one. I said yes and in several days it arrived. In the box was a shipping receipt but there was no invoice. I called Sony and asked how to pay for it and was informed there was to be no charge, just try it out and let them know my thoughts about using a cassette changer. Sounded good to me. I immediately installed it on my SL-7200A. It was bulky, awkward and didn't operate very reliably (this was due to its flywheel drive operation). But it did work and did what was expected of it. I called Sony back as promised and reported that the unit wasn't impressive from a mechanical standpoint but I like the idea of being able to stack more than one cassette in my machine for longer unattended recording. They were very grateful for my input, thanked me and said an improved design would be coming out in the near future. You would soon be able to stack and record several tapes of various lengths for all kinds of timer options. You didn't have to just use the longest tapes, you could mix it up.
     This helped add to the already mounting confusion. A changer? Where was this all going? These new numbering designations for Beta tapes turned out to be another obstacle, one that the Beta camp would come to regret. What exactly did the L-250, L-500 numbers mean anyway? (Turns out that it was referring to the amount of feet in the cassette.) Now Sony had another selling job. How exactly do you educate the public about all the changes that were taking place? Now the challenge was tape designations. The K-30 for a thirty minute tape at the speed made sense, as did the K-60 for sixty minutes. But it would be confusing to double these when came along, then later, . It would have been even more messy. The L-750 could now be a ninety minute or a three hour cassette? Do you call it the K-90? The time lengths couldn't be made to come out nicely. Not in easy to use block time segments. Beta had little choice but to label their tapes the way they did. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place by the constraints of their initial cassette design. All the while RCA was pounding home the message with mountains of adds telling the public that you can get way more recording time using VHS instead of Beta. While all this was going on I was caught up recording, and upgrading my Beta VCR experience. I added a new model to compliment my older one. It had the and speeds with scan and pause. More fun to add to this blissful feeling that I had made the right choice in formats. I was confident that Beta was better than VHS. All the technical data said so too but that turned out later to be so unimportant. To make matters even worse for Sony their new technology was getting attacked by the television and motion picture industry over copyright infringement. Would recording movies, videos and other proprietary properties become illegal? It would if Hollywood got its way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

     One of the things video recording is good at is... well recording content. Primarily at this stage of the game this meant television programs, movies and other stuff that was covered by copyrights. Because of this the owners of this content began getting scared. They envisioned a world where everybody is bootlegging their films, pirating their television shows, taping their sporting events and assassinating their precious commercials. The media industry and the artists involved felt they would lose large amounts of revenue because of this new way to work around their monopoly. (Was this a possible contributing cause for the early demise of Cartrivision?) So now Sony was facing a new challenge. In November of 1976 a joint lawsuit was filed by The Walt Disney Company, Universal studios et. al. naming (Sony) Betamax as the sole perpetrator. They stood accused of making equipment for sole purpose of stealing the intellectual properties owned by the studios. It was now going to be up to the courts to decide if home video recording should be outlawed and the equipment for doing so be made illegal. It seems strange now, but this ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court (and was finally decided in January of 1984). While this legal battle was going on everybody was cranking out VCRs and most of the movie studios began jumping on the huge movie rental bonanza (Disney and Universal did hold off for a short while). Sony ultimately won the lawsuit for us and won us the right to video tape what we wanted (for our own use only). But it was Sony, not Matsushita, or any of the other VHS manufacturers, or any of the tape duplication labs, or the tape rental companies that fought this battle for us. Sony stood alone and won us the right. Ultimately everyone ended up reaping great benefits from this landmark decision. I watched it all with great trepidation, but I was confident that the public would come out on top. While this was all going on VHS continued to gain market share on Beta and it was beginning to look like both formats were here to stay with VHS winning over the general public.

CHAPTER NINE

     Shortly after the introduction Sony announced that there would be no more reductions in tape speed from the Beta camp and no further time battle. What caused this decision was not video head size or the rigid tape quality requirements, but the speed at which the tape would have to travel. The slower the tape traveled in the path the more tricky it became to hold tracking center, keep the picture stable and maintain a uniform speed. Plus the audio was getting worse. The faster the tape speed the better the audio frequency response and was slow. The slowest speed for VHS was even slower. The audio available for video tape was dull and had little fidelity. The slower speeds also limited the picture quality. VHS extra long play (the six hour mode) was only able to record about 220 lines (less than half the broadcast definition). Their picture was grainy, unstable and had questionable color reproduction. was a little better with 240 lines and a little sharper picture. Independent lab reports bore this out. The slowest Beta speed did have a better video response than did that of VHS. But there was another side to these slow speeds that no one talked about, something ugly. The very negative effect that machine condition and poor maintenance had on performance. Both formats knew that as their units were being used they began to wear and would require periodic maintenance. They were, after all, mechanical devices and factors like dirt, component wear and abuse would take a heavy toll. It could become an even bigger factor at the slowest speed where tracking was most critical. As the formats racked up the number of hours the slow moving tape would begin to wander around in the tape path. Both format manufacturers were well aware of these problems and aggressively made modifications to combat fatigue and tape path wear. It made for better machines but the slowest speed always remained a problem. But all this didn't seem to concern the general public. Cramming the most video on a single tape was all that mattered.

CHAPTER TEN

     The Beta format continued developing and pounding VHS in the dust in performance. Sony was adding features and beating up on enemy. Picture enhancements and more special functions were added, such as clear picture still, scan and slow motion. I soon sold my current Beta, an SL-5400, to a friend and then went for the brass ring, the SL-5800. It had it all, and , variable slow motion, still pause, fast play and variable scan in forward and reverse. And almost everything could be controlled from my easy chair with the neat wired remote. The couch potato was born. To add icing on the cake I put a very nice AG-300 changer on top of it so I could record up to twenty hours if I wanted using the new L-830 cassette. Naturally, being curious, I open up all these units and looked over the insides to check out the improvements made over the SL-7200. I noticed the threading assembly was more compact. The tuner was no longer of the dual rotary type and a single RF module handled both UHF and VHF. The functions keyboard now used solenoids to operate the functions. It was no longer all mechanical. This unit was wonderful, did a great job of recording and the changer worked flawlessly. And cassettes were now readily available, expensive, but available. I was leading a charmed life. It was around this time that several bigger changes occurred in my life. My wife and I had our second child, a handsome baby boy, and I had changed my career. I decided to go into industrial sales. My wife was wary. Later she would tell me that her actual thoughts were more along the lines of... I was crazy. My field was selling specialty welding, brazing and joining compounds. As it turned out it was a wonderful decision. I got to see how everything was made and repaired. My specialty was problem solving. I had great materials and excellent tech support from my company. I became respected and welcomed by my customers. I sold solutions to problems for underground and surface mines, railroads, grain elevators, power suppliers, automobile plants, plastic manufacturers, refineries, farms and all kinds of specialty repair shops. The field was open and the list was endless. I covered an assigned region in three states and I had almost every kind of business as a potential customer. This was hardball. Customers looked to me for help, which in turn saved them money and time. I was successful and I loved doing it.
     I was lucky in another way too. The company I worked for owned a promotional products company. Account executives (my official title) earned bonus points and prizes based on their sales volume. Points could be redeemed for merchandise. What I did with these spiffs (as they were called) was left completely up to me. I could use them to buy gifts for myself and if I wanted, I could give the points or products to my customers as giveaways. We were encouraged by our area managers to return some of this earned value to our customers, and to do it sincerely. I became very close friends with some of the captains of industry and they appreciated my promotional items. Maybe because they weren't related in any way to their business. As luck would have it one of the products made available to me was the Sony Betamax. I gave a number of these away at Christmas. One I remember well was a retirement gift for an executive that arrived at my door defective. I called the promotions division and they told me it would be faster if I would contact Sony's fulfillment division direct. They gave me the name of the local Sony distributor and suggested that I take the unit to them for a replacement, which I did. This was to begin my relationship with the area Sony service center and would solidify my love for Sony, and the Betamax.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

     I took the defective unit to the local distribution warehouse as soon as possible. When I walked in the door I noticed there was a long counter with double doors behind it and another set of double doors at the end, opposite the entrance. When I sat the Betamax, still in the box, on the counter very quickly an employee appeared through the doors behind the counter and asked me how could he help. I explained what had happened and he remarked it sounded like just a blown fuse but no matter, they would just replace it. He asked to see my delivery receipt, which I gave to him. He then proceeded down the counter and through the doors at the end. I should mention here that the receipt had my name and address on it. After a couple of minutes he came back into room, went back behind the counter and came up to me. He said for me wait a few minutes as he was going into the warehouse to get a new unit and would be right back. He went through doors behind the counter and disappeared.
     I glanced around and found there was a small showroom behind me with a few different Sony items on display. There was a six inch and twenty-one television, several speakers, a couple of Betamax models, and some none Sony merchandise. Suddenly the doors at the end of the counter opened and into the area walked someone I recognized. He walked up to me, shook my hand and asked how I had been doing since graduating from high school! Worked out we had been good friends in school. I remarked that it was a real pleasure to see him again after all these years. He told me that he was the general manager and would I like to have a look around. Of course I said yes. The replacement Betamax was sitting on the counter by now and he said we would just leave it there for now, it wasn't going anywhere. We talked about old times as we walked around while he showed me the inventory, loading area, parts warehouse and repair shop. Working on a Betamax in the repair shop was also someone I knew from high school. This was like a reunion! We all agreed it was a small world and how happy we were to see each other again, and how a lot had happened over time. So we talked a little more in the repair area and then I was invited by my manager friend to come into his office. We sat down and he asked if I would like a soda or coffee, which I declined. Next he asked me about how I came by the Betamax I was exchanging. I explained the promotions division of my company, how the process worked and how the price I paid was much lower than retail. He asked how would I feel about buying wholesale from his distributorship and using my points for other things. He said that if I was going to place more Sony products into his area he would prefer that I get them from him. I said that sounded great. He added that he would make available to me anything they carried, even products that we not from Sony. After about four hours we ended our discussion and walked back into the counter area. I asked if it would be okay if I could say goodbye to the service technician and he said sure. As I walked back to the shop I heard him tell the counter people that I would be buying direct from them from now on and to get a wholesale catalog prepared for me. Before I left he went over the catalog with me and how to decipher the pink sheet codes so I could arrive at the wholesale price. I thanked everybody in sight again, picked up the new Betamax and left. It had been a very good day.

CHAPTER TWELVE

     In the months that followed I cultivated a close relationship with everybody at the distributorship. Betamax continued to evolve and I knew of no better way to remain on top of everything than to frequent the sales and service center. I couldn't go to Japan but this was the next best thing. The first major change for Betamax was front loading. Gone was the top loading door except for portable units. The SL-5000 series of Betas had the cassette opening on the right front. They were still large but the elimination of the top loading was a biggie. Next came a major change with the SL-2500 and the portable SL-2000. Both had the new 711 chassis. Sony had reengineered the tape path by rotating it 180 degrees and miniaturizing most of the components.The tape envelope (the way it wrapped around the drum) remained the same, and everything was still compatible. This was very ingenious. This newer chassis design made the new thinner, slimmer designs possible and it was the one Sony would retain up until the end. By now I was selling a few units to friends, family and, every once and a while, to business associates. Naturally, I bought a SL-2500 and added the AG-400. changer. A little later I sprung for the SL-2000 with a HVC-2200 color camera. I had become a true Betaholic (Betaphile). Now I was heavily into recording, editing and preserving the TV shows. I recorded my family, car shows, the zoo, or basically just anything I could point my camera at or get off TV. (I still have most of those tapes.) Occasionally on my visits to the distributorship the manager and I would go to lunch. During one of these lunches he asked me if I ever considered working on Betamax? (From our past conversations he knew I was an electronics nut.) He said he wasn't looking to replace the technician he currently had but it was always good to have a back up plan. He also added that the tech had mentioned to him on several occasions that he was wanting to return to college and get his degree as an electrical engineer. I loved my current occupation and really didn't want to change jobs. But maybe I could do some side work to help out if they needed. I also mentioned that I would want to limit myself to just the Betamax. I wasn't interested in televisions, turntables, stereos, etc. He liked that idea and added that television service people had been around for some time and were much easier to replace, Betamax was more difficult to understand and that finding someone interested in taking on a new challenge was a little more difficult. He went on to say he would make available to me all the Sony study, training and technical information. When we returned to the center we went back to the service area and he pulled several books from the shelf on the theory of operation, service methods and training for Betamax and handed them to me. I was thrilled, and I was on my way to becoming a die hard Beta groupie, even worse than before. But that was nothing compared to what was about to happen next.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

     For the next few months I watched all the training videos, read all the service literature and studied the updates. I even managed to rack up a few hours of actual service work during vacations and free time. Soon Sony introduced the SL-5200, their first Betahi-fi unit. It looked almost exactly like the SL-5000 front loader it was modeled after. It was a revolutionary leap forward in sound quality, one that Sony bragged VHS couldn't duplicate. This was true because the smaller drum of VHS (with its undersized scan length) wouldn't allow the audio to be inserted into its video signal like Betahi-fi did. It looked like a major victory for the Beta camp. The SL-5200 was a big seller even though stereo television broadcasting hadn't begun yet. To overcome this minor inconvenience Sony provided it and all their hi-fi models going forward with a multiplex plug (MPX) located in the back. It was for adding a future decoding unit that would make the VCR compatible with stereo TV broadcasting when it came about. The 5000 series Betas finally gave way to the new slimline units. Several of these models were "Betahi-fi ready" VCRs. They were monaural but had a multi-plug socket in the back for a stereo decoder that could be added later. This way consumers cloud ease their way into the Beta experience for a smaller up front investment and upgrade to stereo later. These were very popular because it made sense. Sony was making a big splash with the new phenomenal stereo sound. I didn't buy any of these units because I knew that new models were coming that received full stereo off-the-air (called stereocast).
But something happened that stopped everything in it's tracks. One morning the owner of the distributorship, one of five that he owned in a three state area, was found dead in the doorway of his central warehouse one morning. (The circumstances surrounding his demise were never explained and the mystery was never solved.) His widow knew very little about the electronics business, and this, plus the grief of her loss, caused her to abandon all operations. Sony was already in the process of phasing out the regional distribution system and setting up to sell directly to their retailers, so the impact on them was minimal. My manager friend was now out of a job, as was everyone else at the distributorship, but it wasn't too long before I heard from him.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

     About a month passed and I received a phone call from my high school friend. He had purchased his previous employer's inventory and opened his own electronics wholesale store. He could no longer wholesale Sony products but he could still repair them (as any qualified business could at this time). He was looking for someone to work on Beta (the technician that had previously worked for him was now unavailable because he was away at school working on his degree). I told him that I was interested but probably not as qualified as others he could find. He countered with the argument that I had what he wanted; ambition, drive and a love for everything Beta. We agreed to limit my exposure to Beta only, even though it would mean working on machines made by other manufacturers. (He had already hired several other techs to work on TVs, VHS, stereos and other gear.) I would work from my home, order the parts I needed through him and he would provide the service manuals, updates and training literature, which I could keep. During this time I changed my full time employment. I had the same geographic area to cover but I was now working with exotic metals, elastomeric polymers and specialty coatings. It was another sweetheart deal which lasted for several years but eventually it made being a Beta specialist impractical. Besides, Sony was now handling almost all their repairs from their district service centers. My friend and I both new this was coming and in 1985 I officially parted company with the Beta repair business. I maintained a good relationship with him for a number of years after that and I was always allowed to buy the newest gear at nearly cost, I even worked on a few units for him from time to time. Something new from Sony was also added at this time. Called SuperBeta. it improved their already superior picture. I added the new SL-HF900 (SuperBetahi-fi) to my collation and eventually the SL-HF750. Then an SL-HF860D and even an SL-HF1000. Fortunately, I was able to sell off some of my older Betas to some of my business contacts. That way I was able to keep things current, practical and monetarily under control. What I didn't get rid of were the parts, manuals and literature I was able to collect over the years. After all, who else was I going to trust to work on my treasured Betas but me?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

     For the next few years I was only a consumer of Beta. I did a little work on the side for friends but nothing like before. Time passed, I changed employers several times ending up as an outside sales person with a buildings materials wholesaler and once again good fortune shined down on me. As one of their top sales people I was offered a position to manage a branch warehouse location in South Carolina that was in trouble (because of being poorly managed). It was going to be my project to turn it around and return it to profitability. It was a great deal because it was going to be like having my own business but having a big corporation with deep pockets as my backer. I was offered good money (more than I had ever seen), profit sharing, a big yearly bonus incentive plan. Plus they would pick up all the expenses to move me to sunny SC. So my family and I eagerly moved to the land of southern charm, friendly people and warmer weather.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

     I didn't get to see the branch prior to assuming the position, the current manager was still there up until the day before I was to take over. Upon inspection I found out that it was worse that I could have imagined. I'm not going to go into all the grizzly details but just let me say that the inventory was way off, most of the employees were crooks and the bathroom didn't work. And those were the good points. So I stepped in, replaced all but two people, restocked the inventory, balanced the books, cleaned up all the customer claims and, oh yes, corrected the bathroom situation. It took about five months before we started to show a profit. I worked twelve hours a day, six days a week and never really had time to think about Betamax. Once things were humming along and all my new people were happy in their positions a curious thing happened. The home office decided to relocate all their regional supervisors, including the one that hired me. I know now that this was something that it is not all that uncommon. This clears the way for new policies, practices and also wipes away any verbal commitments made by the previous super. It also cleared the way for the company to buy me out so that I could be replaced with someone that was costing them less money. It seemed like a lousy deal after all the effort and pride I had put into turning the branch around (like they wanted) but in retrospect they did me a favor. They paid my profit sharing, gave me my bonus for the year plus several months severance pay. I wasn't alone either. The same thing happened to all the branch managers in my district. But I was now free to try something totally new and I had some breathing room for finding just the right fit.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

     After a short time I answered an ad for a management position for the worlds largest transmission repair franchise. It was right down my alley. I always loved cars, especially the complexity of the automatic transmissions. Plus, once again, I was going to run the business. I also like the people that worked for me and the owner. I liked it so much that when I was offered their specialty transmission training course I jump at the chance and eventually ended up being a Master Transmission Technician, an elite club of fewer than 200 in the world. But I also did something else during this time. Something that would pave the way to the future. I discovered the internet and I immediately knew this was the wave of the future. I enrolled in a set of classes at a local tech college and learned html, java and javascript. I also took website design, web page composition and photo editing. They were all starter courses for sure but that didn't matter. It set me on fire and inspired me to build my own Website and ultimately offer products and services to online customers for, you guessed it, Betamax repair, sales and service. To my surprise I discovered that there were still hundreds of eager Beta lovers out there that wanted help, accessories and machines. I shifted into gear and began scouring the internet for more parts, more machines and precious contacts. I went to government auctions where used Beta equipment was being sold. I found electronic clearing houses around the country that were selling off bulk quantities of tapes, machines and video equipment. I mined swap meets, electronic expos, flea markets and fairs where all kinds of appliances, gadgets and tools could be purchased. But my most pleasant internet experience came from the army of customers that still loved Beta. I was floored by the massive amount of interest there was. I even built a 1200 square foot warehouse to accommodate my new enterprise. I converted several rooms in my home into an office and service center (kids were now married and gone). When a new owner took over the transmission franchise it just seemed the right time to retire from the labor force and devote myself to my new hobby and my online obsession. It has worked out great. I am not flooded with work, but stay busy. I have time to enjoy my grandkids, to travel and to tinker around with my Website. Plus I am recognized around the world as one of the few remaining suppliers of everything Beta. I have truly turned into Misterßetamax.

AND IT CONTINUES
P. S. To find out why my Website works the way it does and to see my first attempts at Website design click here.

For more on these first attempts at making consumer video click here.
The U. S. Supreme Court as it turned out. So why didn't they go after Mitsushita with this complaint? Because they didn't invent the VCR and if the plaintiffs could win against Sony it would apply to VHS as well, and a whole lot more. To see the lawsuit click here.
To see the 711 chassis in operation click here (requires a mpeg movie player).
©Misterßetamax
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