BetaMax discovery conjures thoughts of Del Boy

Date Published: {J}

I know just where I would have to go to find the spare parts necessary for a BetaMax video recorder which turned up in our garage in the past week as we moved things about.

The answer is obvious . . . why Trotter’s Independent Traders of course, for only they have done things like stake their future on Russian recorder technology, not to mention the time they went into the business of ‘statellite’ pictures featuring the pick of risqué Scandinavian films.

The entry into the world of high-tech also had other problems for the Trotters. For instance, the cassette was easily as large as a good sized hardbound book according to the Russian format they were using.

I would say that the BetaMax machine in our garage has to weigh three stone . . . it was bought at the time when Beta was big in Galway, and the international war on popular formats of the time for viewers was reaching its peak.

I have to pause here to remind younger readers that simply may not understand what I am talking about. They come from the DVD generation and may have seen the odd video tape lying about the place . . . these tapes preceded the idea of the disc, but they were doomed probably because it was so easy for tapes to get tangled and damaged and chewed up in the machines.

The discs also had the added advantage of being light, easily stored, easily put into a case and brought about the place. The Trotters had chosen to ignore all of this . . . well, they had one definite customer in Trig who instantly bought-in.

I have a suspicion that the BetaMax format continued on in Galway for longer than in other centres because O’Connor Television on Shop Street dominated the market in sales, repairs and rentals . . . so, there was still a BetaMax demand in Galway when it had long vanished in other areas of the country and O’Connor’s continued to serve a vanishing BetaMax format demand, as VHS gained the upper hand around the world. In other words, O’Connor’s were serving their customers and continued to do so.

I have a suspicion that VHS might have been the one the Japanese and some European giants went for, but I am subject to possible correction on that.

The technology has certainly changed in the intervening years. For instance, the BetaMax recorder which was recovered from the garage must have weighed at least three stones and the body appeared to be made of metal solid enough to survive a nuclear blast, not to mention some brat interfering with the settings.

The only comparable weight I can think of was Del Boy’s decision to go into the business. It was a home industry that eventually found itself working on the outer edges of the porn business.

Not surprisingly, car dealer Boycie was at the head of this potential budding porn industry, though he seemed to spend most of his time out on the back lawn trying to get the dish to tune-in to the satellite which was putting out ‘art films’.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.