Marketed by Sanyo and Toshiba this tape came in two varieties. The original V-Cord was for the early black and white machines and recorded twenty and thirty minutes (VT-20C and VT-30C). The second generation V-Cord II had a slightly redesigned cassette, recorded in color, had two speeds and a maximum recording time of two hours. The cassettes of both are shaped the same but the first design, the one we are going to examine, has the distinctive four screws along one edge that hold the two metal guides in place. As you can see the cassette was inserted long ways, tapered end first into the machine and the tape loaded out the side of the cassette. Click the picture and the external parts are identified. Click again and we see the cartridge opened up and the internal structure. The cassette design is notable in several ways. A sliding door exposed the pocket for the loading area when the cassette was inserted. The action was performed by a metal pawl and a wear plate was used to keep it from damaging the plastic shell when it moved into place. The guides and roller were metal and held in place by four screws, the later design replaced these with plastic. A photocell and clear tape leaders were used for tape end detection. Like their Beta machines to come later, the V-Cord threaded the tape back into the cassette for fast forward and rewind. A pocket was located in the shell for the end of tape sensor. Reel areas were nested, similar to the Umatic, to conserve space. Only the supply reel had a spring loaded lever to keep it from spillage, the take up reel was locked in place when not in the machine by a special slotted center hub and boss. Click on the photo to remove the descriptions. Click again and you see the interesting take up reel locking assembly. The locking boss held the reel when at rest but would release it when pressed upwards by the spindle in the machine. In the upper left of the photo take note of the sliding door and wear plate. The plastic door would flex around into the rear of the cartridge when slid back. Downward pressure on the supply reel to keep it properly sitting on the spindle in the machine was supplied by the leaf spring, shown in the center photo. The white center button is a bearing surface. A close up of the supply reel retainer is in the upper right. Click on the photo to remove the arrows and wording. Because the supply reel retainer was not a positive locking device a card was enclosed with each cassette to instruct the user on how to take the slack out of the reel. The card is shown in the next photo. The less positive locking system has improved in the second generation cassette. Click again and you will see the line up of each of the design tapes and their respective sleeves. To continue on to Quasar click here. To go back to the page on the Cartrivision Cassette click here. ©Misterßetamax go to homepage