There were a bunch of early videotape systems. I once came across a device in a surplus store which was a cassette rewinder for a large, strange cassette. It had a key lock and a counter. The idea was that video stores would rent out cassettes you could only watch once, because the player lacked a rewind mechanism. Then you had to return the video. The store would rewind it, an event counted by the counter. The store would be billed accordingly, by the movie distributor.<p>Fortunately this approach did not catch on.
I liked that the remote controls on these old things (if they had one) would actually have a servo physically turn the dial one notch.<p>Also, ask anyone that had an old tv with a physical dial if they remember using a matchbook, paper, etc, to hold the dial offset just a little so that the picture was clear. A surprisingly common memory for many.
If you find this interesting: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Techmoan" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/user/Techmoan</a>
<i>Have you ever tried to use a laserdisc player? They pretty much only come in two sorts now:<p>1. Broken
2. Repaired</i><p>I have one of the third sort, unbroken and unrepaired. But it's a low-end CLD-S250. I don't even remember when and where I got it, and the only LDs I own are the original Star Wars trilogy.
> <i>if they just mailed them to the customer they would have invented proto-netflix in 1972, but nooooo, cartrivision had to do absolutely everything wrong.</i><p>No, they would have invented a still foobared prototype of Blockbuster Video.
Since Twitter won’t let you click through to read the whole thing without logging in, here’s a better link.<p><a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1423369057181454339.html" rel="nofollow">https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1423369057181454339.html</a>
Non auth-walled version:<p><a href="https://nitter.net/Foone/status/1423369057181454339" rel="nofollow">https://nitter.net/Foone/status/1423369057181454339</a>
I think I'm going to have to follow @Foone, this is the second thread I've seen by them and it is of just as high of quality and informative content as the first.