How to keep a kid from accessing a site: ask them what a VCR is used for

Just write the age verification question in cursive. /s

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Maybe the retro fashion is for Betamax?

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I got that joke!

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Because it’s a VHS recorder, the VHS players were a niche device.

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I’m not old enough to have used a rotary dial on an actuall bell network. However, my Elementary school still used them in their private exchange. There was a phone outside the office without a dial that was used to forward a parent’s call. I’m not sure who taught us kids this, but we used to try and call the phone in the library across the hall by rhythmically tapping the number on the button the receiver rested on. The success rate was never very high but sometimes it would work and much joy would be had.

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Ah, just like how when I was a kid in the 1980s I had no idea what a record player was, or a typewriter, or disco.

Oh, wait, no, that’s nonsense. Heck, I even knew what an 8-track was, if a closer analogy is needed.

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… and the thing that bothered me was the misspelling of Riesling.

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I typically tried to hex edit out a large number of options to just a few that I could remember. A friend had an early 90’s PC game, XF5700 Mantis Experimental Fighter, that required you to answer questions (no multiple choice) from the +100 page instruction and documentation booklet that came with it. Even after pruning the question list down I would get kicked out about 25% of the time for failing to get a correct answer after 3 tries.

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I used to make some extra $ fixing people’s stuff

If VCRs weren’t for heating up food, why did I often find entire sandwiches in them?

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Ohhhh, that slot is very compelling to a child armed only with an imagination and a sandwich.

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Wot, no β-max?

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So. What work does a VCR over 25 find (in today’s ____ ______?)

I’d lean towards ‘record NTSC programs and video,’ but maybe it’s ‘90s needed more editing’ or ‘they repair the cyborg repair technicians who in their day gave parts to the VCR,’ or ‘play owning the broadcast toolchain.’

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I still need a VCR to play my wedding video once a year. Finding a TV with RCA jacks is tricky these days.

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Leisure Suit Larry stuff aside (you’ve all beaten me to the punch, but I do remember calling downstairs to my mom for the answers), as a STEM teacher (and ex-educational science software developer), I was curious about Tappity.

Unfortunately, their web content shows absolutely no way to see their pricing without signing up for an account, and no way to preview the content without giving them a credit card number. Sorry, won’t happen. I’m surprised these sites don’t think transparency will get them more initial customers in the door.

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I own Grease on VHS.

Enough said.

Admittedly, my main tv is about 12 years old…

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You’re going to want to have that tape captured to solid-state media before something happens to it. Same goes for any CD-R/DVD-Rs you treasure. They all rot eventually.

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