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 I was fortunate. My wife understood and supported my compassion (compulsion) with everything electronic. I was also fortunate that our hometown 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 groundwork that will shed some light on why my lady would endorse spending over a thousand dollars, in 70s 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 , 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 help 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 take, 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. I was building cars on the production line during second shift at night. Seeing automobiles come together was fascinating. What a hoot! Chrysler cars were selling well. It was the era of affirmative action, so the workforce 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 a 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 forbade 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 liked 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 downside 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 hometown to become a happily married man. After the wife and I found our first apartment we both set about looking for work. She took a full-time job at a fashionable clothing store were she had worked part-time during spring break in 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 studies outcome. During slow times I would talk with the projects researchers. After the project's money expired I took employment running a graphics photo 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. It turned out the station in my hometown was in too large a market for a greenhorn 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 brave enough, 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 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 so I decided to build a one from a kit. One offered by the Heathkit Company in Benton Harbor, Michigan. It was challenging, great fun and when I was finished it worked great. Hard to believe that color TV was ever new and fascinating. To see the chassis of 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, could only handle a studio-type video input source, nothing off-the-air. 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 broadcast TV? The guys at the store didn't have an answer. (A stand alone tuner wasn't available at the time.) 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 video 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" and it was made by a Japanese company called Matsushita. It was really big, expensive, and impractical. It did have something I liked, though. The tape was inside a cassette. No threading around reels like with the like with reel-to-reel video 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 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 of his room. 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 really well and agreed it was still big, even out of the box. After 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 we were able to a small discount off the $1495.00 suggested retail price. But even so, the draft was still over $1250 dollars. Check this out, factoring in for inflation that 1975 money comes to over of $7500 in 2024 dollars! What a steal! So I was now the proud owner of one of the first 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 I purchased the two additional tapes, added 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 houses 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's $98.00 per unit 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 just to use it. Cassettes, as we know, were not cheap. To make matters even 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 that it's almost painful to compare 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 not 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's 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  , ) was born. This was going to compete with the new Sanyo models. But wait, yet another new format was being introduced, called VHS, for Video Home System. 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, expanding 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 that didn't catch on due to mechanical problems and a bulky cassette design? It 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 lose 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. By making this this alliance, Sanyo (and Toshiba) dropped their . The tape length numbers were also changed. The  or one hour in . The and was called  . All this allowed the . 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 though, from Sony.CHAPTER SEVEN
I remember going over to a friend's house and him showing me a device sitting on top of his Well this just added to the already mounting confusion with the public. A changer? The response was: "I hear you can record up to twenty hours unassisted" with this gizmo. Where was this all going? Was this going to settle the time thing once and for all? Not so, it was already too late. And only the most dedicated Betaphile, like me, would ever go to the trouble to program all those recording events. Soon the changers were discontinued because the handwriting was on the wall. Time was no longer the real issue. Everybody was buying what the other guy had and it was VHS. Those new numbering designations for Beta cassettes turned out to be another obstacle, one that the Beta camp would come to regret. What exactly did the L-250 and L-500 numbers mean anyway? (Turns out that it was referring to the amount of feet on the supply reel.) 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, . That would have been even more messy. The and speeds with scan and clear 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 copyrighted 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 only 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 if 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 tape record whatever 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 of the speed Sony announced that there would be no more reductions in tape speed from the Beta camp and no further time challenge. 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 trickier it became to hold the tracking center, keep the picture stable, and maintain a uniform speed. Plus, the audio got even worse. (Remember the faster the tape speed the better the audio frequency response) and was very slow. The slowest speed for VHS was even slower than Beta. The slower speeds also meant a reduction in 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 troublesome 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, get dirty. 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 the most critical. As both formats racked up the hours the slowest moving tape would begin to wander around in the path. They 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 tape speeds 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 blossoming and pounding VHS in the dust in when it came to performance. Sony was adding features and beating up on enemy. This continued advancement only supported my devotion to Beta but the enemy was at the gate. 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 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 and I became a victim. To cap it all off I put a very nice I was fortunate in another way too. The company I worked for had 12 divisions that covered petroleum, fasteners, electrics, plastics, adhesives, connectors, and more. It also had a promotional department that handled some special consumer products. These were available from a very nicely printed catalog. A point system was used and no money changed hands. Account executives (my official title) were rewarded for exceptional sales and earned bonus points (along with prizes) based on their performance. The 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 things for myself, or if I wanted, I could give the points or products to my customers as gratuities. We were encouraged by our area managers to return some, if not all of this earned value to our customers, and to do it sincerely and equitably. They could be used for retirement gifts, birthday celebrations, employee promotions, or for any ethical purpose. I became very close friends with some of the captains of industry this way, and they appreciated being able to reward their workers with those promotional items. Maybe because they weren't related in any way to their trade. As luck would have it one of the products made available to me was the Sony Betamax. and 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 just contact Sony's fulfillment division (aka: distributor) direct. They gave me the name of the local area wholesaler/repair center and suggested that I take the unit to them for a replacement. I said I would. This turned out to open up a whole new chapter with Sony, and with Betamax.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
I took the defective unit to the local distribution warehouse as soon as possible. When I walked in the door, there was a small showroom inside and counter to the right 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, an employee very quickly appeared through the doors behind and asked me how could he help me. I explained what had happened, and he remarked it sounded like just a blown fuse, but no matter, they would just replace the unit from their inventory. That would be the quickest and easiest thing to do. 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 paper had my name and address on it. Turned out he just needed to run it by the head man. After a couple of minutes, he came back into the showroom, went back behind the counter, and then came up to me. He asked 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 the doors behind the counter and disappeared. I glanced around, and in the showroom behind me, there were a few different Sony items on display, along with other electronic devices, but no VHS. There was a six-inch and twenty-one television, several speakers, a couple of Betamax models, and some non-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 high 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 much 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 had paid was much lower than retail. He inquired of me; how would I feel about buying wholesale from his distributorship and using those points for other things. He went on 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 were 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, who also turned to be very nice, and he said sure. As I walked back to the counter area, I heard him tell the staff that I would be buying direct from them and to get a wholesale catalog prepared just for me. Before leaving he went over the catalog with me and told me 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 cassette receiver except for the portable units. The  . 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. New, improved models kept coming out and Beta was evolving. Naturally, I bought a full featured
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 But something happened that stopped everything in its 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. The circumstances surrounding this loss was 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 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 hobby impractical. Besides, Sony was now handling almost all their repairs using their district service centers. My friend and I both knew 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 near 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 collection, 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. Fortunately I did not get rid of my Beta parts, manuals, and literature that I collected 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, and I changed employers several times, ending up as an outside salesperson with a building materials wholesaler, and once again good fortune shined down on me. As one of their top salespeople I was offered a position to manage a branch warehouse location in South Carolina that was in trouble (because of being poorly run). 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, and 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 with almost no snowfall.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
I didn't get to see the branch prior to assuming the posit because 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 than I could have ever 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 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 is not all that uncommon. This clears the way for new policies and practices and also wipes away any verbal commitments made by the previous area manager. 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 jumped 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 service help, Beta accessories and Beta 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 clearinghouses around the country that were selling off bulk quantities of tapes, machines, and video equipment. I mined swap meets, electronic expos, flea markets, and technical 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 (I was getting older) and devote myself to my new hobby and my new online obsession. It has worked out great. I am not flooded with work, but I 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 SO IT CONTINUES P. S. To find out why my Website works the way it does, and to examine my first attempts at Website design click here. For more on these first attempts at making consumer home video click here.The U. S. Supreme Court finally made home video legal. So why didn't they also 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 go to homepage |