But that will let the vacuum out!

Putting the two things together just never made sense.

Buyer's liked them because they took a lot less room. White sets for the kitchen, ETC.
Most guys don't mind a little clutter and exposed wiring, but with women it's a :nono:

I took a Magnavox training course on these TV-VCR's when they were the latest thing. The instructor was not happy with them, either, as the demo set had some issues that caused the set to simply shut down before the day was over. The next day, we had a different demo set to work with.

Seems that if a timing gear was even one-tooth out of time, the things would simply shut down. The instructor told us that Magnavox was finding that people liked to slam their tapes into the machine, instead of letting the machine pull the tape out of their hand.

Alas... I remember when metal was used on a tape transport system...

Slamming tapes into any VCR is going to ruin the machine eventually, especially the newer ones with plastic gears (near the end of the VCR era).

No wonder that demonstration Magnavox TV-VCR kept shutting itself off--someone probably tried to slam a cassette into the loading area, instantly ruining the gears. Why don't people realize that you just don't do that with a VCR? :scratch2: I have a Panasonic VCR I bought over ten years ago that still works, and is a part of my video system alongside (or should I say above) my DVD player.

I learned long ago not to slam cassettes into a front-loading VCR, which is one reason my Panny VCR still works today--almost as well as it did when it was new over a decade ago (I don't use it much anymore, since I've had a DVD player). I lost a Panny VCR with VCR+ after only a year or two, but that was due to a cassette jamming in the machine, not because I slammed the cassette in the loading area. Too bad, as that cassette had a TV show on it I had just taped, but never got to watch--I had to practically wreck the VCR :eek: and then cut the tape to get the cassette out.

I think the slamming problem is generational memory...People remembering slamming tapes into top-loaders and 8-Track decks.

Whenever I have a tape get eaten bad enough that the tape is not the normal 1/2" width in a section, has wrinkled BADLY/irreversibly or has snapped I cut the damaged part out and use adhesive tape to splice it back together same as I do to reel to reel audio tape and 8-Tracks. Never had a problem with that, though I'm very anal about getting the splice PERFECT.