Pandora's Briefcase: Pictures came and broke your heart, Put the blame on...

I have my very own cube.

Rob gave it to me, and was really what started the ball rolling as far as the contents of Pandora's Briefcase is concerned. So you can blame him.

OK, it doesn't quite look like the one in the picture above, but it is similar.

Honest!

Let's open up Pandora's Briefcase, and check out this beastie!

"Video Cassette Recording (VCR) was an early domestic analog recording format designed by Philips. It was the first successful consumer-level home videocassette recorder (VCR) system. Later variants included the VCR-LP and Super Video (SVR) formats.

The VCR format was introduced in 1972. Home video systems had previously been available, but they were open-reel systems (most notably made by Sony) and were expensive to both buy and operate. They were also unreliable and often only recorded in black and white such as the EIAJ-1. The VCR system was easy to use and recorded in colour but was still expensive: the N1500 recorder cost nearly £600 in the United Kingdom when it was introduced in 1972, the equivalent of just over £6000 in 2009. By comparison a small car (the Morris Mini) could be purchased for just over £600.

Modesty tape! Actually, this shows how the tape travels from the Top spool to the Bottom.  Yes, Adrian; I said "BOTTOM!"

The "teeth" that allow the motor of the recorder to rotate the two spools.

The VCR format used large square cassettes with 2 co-axial reels, one on top of the other, containing half inch (12.7 mm) wide chrome dioxide magnetic tape. Three playing times were available: 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 60-minute videocassettes proved very unreliable, suffering numerous snags and breakages due to the very thin video tape. The mechanically complicated recorders themselves also proved somewhat unreliable. One particularly common failing occurred should tape slack develop within the cassette; the tape from the top (takeup) spool may droop into the path of the bottom (supply) spool and become entangled in it if rewind was selected. The cassette would then completely jam and require dismantling to clear the problem, and the tape would then be creased and damaged." Thanks,Wikipedia! Production ceased in the late 1970's.

"Oooh... They look dangerous... Woaaah!...."

"Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggg........ CRUNCH CRUNCH!!!"