This is a fantastic, first hand account from Ampex videotape team member Fred Pfost of the entire process of creating the VR-1000… the world’s first commercially viable videotape machine.
This is a rare front row seat to one of television’s biggest ever moments and beautifully told by someone who was there. There are details here you will never see anywhere else, so save this historic treasure and share it with you friends! – Bobby Ellerbee
[pdf-embedder url=”https://eyesofageneration.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pfost-firsthand.pdf”]
Loaded my first tape up on one of those. A lot of knob turning to make them work, quite a challenge.
I’m old enough to remember the big, foam padded shipping containers used to send head assemblies back and forth to be rebuilt. When I started at Wisconsin Public TV I’m guessing we had about a dozen quad machines, mostly RCA TR-70’s and a few Ampex 1200’s