An old school moment: the first videotape recorder

Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants—seems appropriate that given the calm before the next format war storm we're about to brave we might take a moment to look back at the Ampex VRX-1000 (later renamed the Mark IV), what was effectively the first commercial videotape recorder back in 1956. It sold for $50,000 a pop (which by our inflation calculations is about $345,000 2005 dollars) and apparently they actually moved some units at that gigantic price. But one of our favorite things about this thing is that Bing Crosby Enterprises (the business frontend for you-know-who) was an early investor in Ampex—what can we say, the man was connected! Say, isn't that a young Howie Long second from the left and Rod Serling third from the right?

[Via P&V]