A few weeks ago we began cleaning up our basement. We had a bit of extra stuff down there, some of it useful, some of it excessive. As we were perusing through old stuff I came across a few gems from the past that I wanted to give the respect they deserved. So I posted some photos to Twitter and solicited guesses about each item.
It all started with this old school tech:
I got some guesses on Twitter and Facebook but it was a tough one. Only my wife--who I had to disqualify--got it right away. It's a Gemstar VCR Plus+ scheduler. Outside of the United States it was known as the G-Code, VideoPlus+ and ShowView.
VCR Plus+ came out to make Video Cassette Recorder (remember those?) scheduling easier. This was before On Screen Programming became easy (though it was around) and well before the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) came to fruition. Codes for each show would be published in the local TV guide in the paper or TV Guide magazine. Then you'd enter the code in to the VCR Plus+ and it would automatically send infrared codes to start recording at the right time. It was rather neat, but as a professional VCR programmer I never really needed it. I could work magic with the LCD console.
Interestingly, it appears that www.vcrplus.com still exists and you can still get codes for modern day TV schedules. Who knew?
There's more of this good stuff stashed in our house, my parents' house, and elsewhere. I'll post more gems as I find them. I hope you find them interested too.
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