byrewatching the Technology Connections on Beta failing again. blown away by this high-end VCR, though I'm sure (and I think Alec says) it's not really representative of what the average person was gonna have. my parents had VCRs but I'm certain they weren't this fancy.
When I was younger what we had was "hope I catch the cartoon I want to watch", and then by high school we had tivos which solved the problem but in a very different way. just missed this period entirely by being slightly too young / not having parents that could get this kind of thing.