Just found a Sharp VHS from 1979
 

In really good condition too but it has a problem or two.

This is a model VC-6800, brought it home, powered it up and couldn't get it to do anything except power on.

I spent an hour or so under and over the chassis and found several levers that were gummed up solid, cleaned and lubed them, also cleaned the belts, which are somewhat dry but still in decent shape.

Now it's still somewhat balky but it'll play a tape, the picture is snowy on half the screen because there isn't enough tension on the feed reel to keep it snug against the head, if I put a little drag on the tape with my finger I can get the picture to come in clear, I'm guessing another gummy lever somewhere keeping it from working right.

Surprisingly the FF and REW work OK.

This thing weighs 39 freaking Lbs!

It's really primitive, you open the door, push the tape in, then you press the Load button which causes the tape to drop down into position.

I remember these arriving on the maket...they were about the front front loaders!!

man, thats technology. what happened?

Wow, can you imagine how much that bad boy was new?

Mark

I had a Panasonic Omnivision IV from early 1980-About 2 months after I got it, they came out w/the 6-hour speed. Anyhow, it was built like a BATTLESHIP, too-weighed about 40 lbs, as well as I remember. I gave it to my church about '85, they still have it, & I think it still works. I oughta go & reclaim it, I don't think they've used it in years...

$1395 MSRP according to this source:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/...portable-vcrs/

Or about $1390 depreciation over 30 years.

Sandy, I can picture that conversation..


Dear God,

I want my f***in VCR back!!!

I promise I'll be good...

Sandy

just kiddin with ya, you know we luv ya

Erin and Eric

Nah, its prolly gonna be somethin' more along THESE lines-
Sandy-
What do you mean, you cheap, ungrateful..giving your church a wore-out, junky, clunky VCR ? Just you wait..In 2004, I'm gonna send you a little "Thank You" note in the way of a Stroke...-Gabriel, for the Big Guy....

Everything went down the tubes :(

Nice looking deck, the 70s was the era of plastic wood grain laminates for TV, video and audio equipment, got to love it! :)

Its sad how stuff has gotton SO CHEAP AND DISGUSTING over the years...

WHY DO PEOPLE PUT UP WITH THIS CRAP WHEN THEY KNOW HOW GOOD IT USED TO BE??

Nice deck, I was just playing around with my '77 RCA VBT-200 the other day wondering what some of the other machines looked like. Yours looks cooler than mine IMO. I just ran across a VDT-600 from '79 but the top was all busted, I guess I could have picked it up for the mechanical parts for the two bucks. It's the same as my older version as far as the mechanism, or at least that's what the book says....

If the way people approach politics is any indication, they put up with it because they have -VERY- short memory spans. :nono:

Any new technology soon becomes a race to the bottom as parts and manfacturing improve and cheapen. Quality costs money, and the world economic landscape was much different when the VCR appeared, as opposed to when the VCR disappeared. :scratch2: :no:

Back on topic, love that spiffy LCD display. I think I have only seen one other VCR like that. Is it backlit?

People "put up with" cheaply-built equipment because they do not want to "put up with" paying $900 for a VCR anymore, as this model probably cost. Would you "put up with" paying $1900 for a 19-inch color TV today? (That is my guess of the equivalent value of the $450 cost of a color TV in 1964.) If you want to spend that much, I bet you could find someone who would hand-rebuild a set and put in a newly-rebuilt CRT for you.

Yeah, that 1980 VCR was something like $1k back then...As I said, it weighed a TON, looked to be a SLIGHTLY downgraded industrial/commercial type machine. ..I took the top cover off of it, and it had a cast-aluminum chassis, & the parts all by & large, had that "Substantial" look to them that commercial stuff has. The 2nd VCR I got in '85 was a strereo/Hi-Fi model, but by then, they'd figgered out how to crank 'em out good 'n' cheap...It was maybe a fifth the size of the 1980 model, & was a real liteweight by comparison. It lasted til '90 or so, the one I got then was an el-cheapo that just recorded. No hi-fi, stereo, nada. Think I gave under $100 for it.

It'd be great if you could get the picture quality of the newer decks (VHS and picture quality= Oxymoron) and the build of the older decks.

The last VHS player I bought was a Sony, probably about 10 years ago, it worked fine for years, and still does tho I don't use it anymore.

Got a Panasonic VHS/DVD recorder about 3 or 4 years ago to copy tapes with, figured I'd be lucky if it lasted a year but it's still going strong (and running nearly constantly)

I finally had to take it apart and clean both the laser and the VHS heads ( an old tape clogged the heads badly, the laser was dusty and wouldn't recognize some blank discs) but honestly, you can't imagine the number of tapes that have been run through it, and the amount of DVDs burned, both have to be in the thousands by now!

things are built lighter, simpler and cheaper now but sometimes they work great, I think it helps to stick to major brands like Sony, Panasonic, HP, Dell, & forget the bargain basement junk.

Sony's not what it was but it's still a cut above most others, Panasonic builds good quality TV's, Samsung has become a respected brand of late.

Well if i had the $$$ i probably would bud :)

I am a purist and i demand GOOD QUALITY,something that alot of people do not grab the concept of anymore :(

One wonders what a TV built to R-390A-style milspecs would be like...And cost...

Update: I got this beastie working!

As I thought, there was a spring loaded lever that pulls the tape up against a head that was gummed up.
I cleaned and lubed it, cleaned the rubber parts and it works good now!

All the rubber is in great shape for 31 years old, there was some cigarette smoke residue inside but not bad, possibly it helped preserve the rubber parts.

Now, what to do with a 40 pound, 31 year old, mono, VHS player? :)

Lament on what we've lost ?!? (Grin)...

Hey, silly question... what's APLD do on a VCR?!? On an audio cassette deck it's a music search system. I.E. if you activate APLD and hit rewind/ff, it will find the next blank spot between songs and start playing there. It was a common feature of Sharp's tape decks (& boomboxes!) of the late 70s through 80s. I once saw a cool APLD sticker on a tape deck, "The Sharp Eye is quicker than the hand." Kinda like this ad...

Yes, it means Automatic Program Locate Device, says so right on the tape door.
I haven't tried it to see if it works yet.

I wonder if it's a different name for index search. (Search for the beginning of each recorded program...)

This was Sharp's very first VHS VCR...
 

Wow, I'm surprised nobody knows this Sharp VC-6800 VCR.:drool:

This was the very first VHS VCR ever made and released by Sharp, along it being the world's first front-loading VCR ever made in history. It was also the first VCR ever made with a time remaining counter (how many minutes left till end).

Sharp was the only VHS VCR manufacturer to put a gold-color video head (not chrome like all makers) from 1979-1981. I don't know if this was better or worse, but I do like the color. This one uses a pulley motor with a flat belt to spin the gold-color video head, the only VCR I saw.

I used to own one back in 2006 that I bought from eBay for only $30. Put in new belts and kept it for 1 year, and I sold it back for $300 on eBay. The buyer bought it but never used it and put it in storage. I'm surprised to find another VC-6800 as I told him there will never be another VC-6800 listed again on eBay. It's an ultra-rare model.

The OP can sell this on eBay with a $300 buy it now price plus shipping at anytime, and it will sell. No, I think $500 is more appropriate.

Walt, are you sure about the model on this Sharp?

I had it apart lubing and cleaning but I didn't notice the head being Gold, do you mean the drum or the heads themselves, seems like Gold or Gold anodizing wouldn't last long on the rotating drum.

Oh yes, the Sharp VC-6800 was the first VCR ever released by Sharp. In 1980, the VC-7400 was the second. In 1981, the VC-8500 was the third. In 1982, the VC-9400, VC-9500, and VC-9600 were the forth and the first ones with the regular, chrome-color video head.

The VC-6800 I used to own before came with an owner's manual and service manual.

I also used to own a 1981 VC-8500 in 2003 that was completely smashed, broken, and shattered from shipping. I was forced to throw it out without playing with it. This one was the last Sharp VCR model with a gold-color video head. So far, I have not found another VC-8500 on eBay for 8 years now (dang).

I have heard that the gold-anodizing video drum head had a very high cleaning rate, but it is very durable. People who used to own a 1979-1981 Sharp VCR didn't keep it for very long because they were tired taking it in to a repair shop and clean the video head every year. The video head drum itself is the most heaviest, most amount of metal ever found in a VCR.

Lastly, I currently own a portable 1981 Sharp XA-900 (not 2002 XA-905/XA-920) Professional Series VCR, the first Sharp XA model, with the gold-color video head inside. Not really my favorite one, but it's better than nothing since I haven't found another VC-8500.

Do not adjust the tension band yet. Clean the video head prior to adjusting. It was adjusted at its best from the factory when it was new in 1979. I had this same problem.

I don't need to, I fixed this unit some months ago and it wasn't anything out of adjustment.

Dried grease on one of the levers that tensions the tape was keeping it from moving at all, I took it apart, lubed it and it works good now.

Marc Wielage with Rod Woodcock say this was indeed the first front loader. Huh, so not everything about VCRs was invented by Sony or JVC :)

A good article there!!

I hadnt ever seen Betamax. Why was 'BETA' in the name??

Were they testing it and VCR is the final product while BETAs were the testing phase?? (As most BETA stuff is)

Marketing, just marketing --

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Betam...st%20greatness.