Some of my earliest childhood memories involve watching grainy VHS movies over and over on a huge 80’s floor model TV. Over the years there have been many format wars – Betamax vs VHS was one of the firsts. From Mental Floss on Youtube
VCR technology changed entertainment. It let people watch television shows on their own schedules, it transformed the way movies were consumed forever, and it might just have indirectly given us Game of Thrones.
This episode of Throwback dives into the battle between VHS and Betamax, and explains the key role Mister Rogers played in keeping the VCR alive. Did adult movies really play a pivotal role in the so-called “Format Wars”? How did we end up with two competing formats that looked nearly identical on screen? And why did no one you know ever own a Umatic?
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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