Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
It kind of boggles my mind how RCA could think this was a good idea, ... but in fairness to RCA, when it was dreamed up in the 1950s, and started in 1964, there wasn't anything out there to do the job. However by the time they got it to work decently enough to show a prototype for corporate blessing it was 1973, and it took till 1982 to be ready for prime time.
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Ampex was selling video tape recorders in 1956. In 1959, finance people has so corrupted the business (manipulating spread sheets to claim record profits and management bonuses) that Ampex had a $10 million loss on $60million in sales.
Also part of the development team was Sony. New management considered Sony a thief - not recognizing technological development as a productive contribution.
Ampex decided to do a Carly Fiorina. It separated their video business into home and commercial divisions - as if there was a difference. Then separated both groups by thousands of miles so that neither could contribute/cooperate/innovate with the other. Ampex then gave Sony a helical scanning recording technology to pay for the breakup. Since that technology had not yet been developed and therefore would have no value. Management *knew* from spread sheets that helical scanning was only good for a dead end business - home recording and closed circuit video. Management was convinced that all money would be in broadcast video sales.
How long does a fundamental technology take to develop? Twenty years later, helical scanning would be the only video recording technique.
Ampex then released the first VCR in November 1970 - Instavision. Fourteen years from a video tape machine to video recorder is typical of how long innovation takes. Meanwhile Ampex took on a new Japanese partner - Toshiba.
We know what happened. Eventually Ampex would alienate Toshiba as it had Sony. Ampex put both companies into the video business. Then alienated both resulting in no benefits from innovation in those companies - run by engineers. Ampex played money games to maximize profits - stifling R&D and cost controlling manufacturing development. Eventually Ampex was sold to Signal Corporation for pennies which I think was then sold to Toshiba.
Technologies that became Betamax and VHS both came from Ampex in California. Management had no grasp of the significance when Ampex equipment in 1959 recorded both sound and video simultaneously as Krushchev and Nixon had their famous kitchen debate.
By 1980, America had all but surrendered the entire video market to Japan when RCA (dominated by an MBA named Bradshaw) was stifling numerous 1960 technologies - CMOS microprocessor (Somerville), LCDs (Raritan), satellites (Princetion), solid state television semiconductors (Mt Pocono), digital CMOS logic (Somerville), hand held video cameras (Princeton), etc. Technologies stifled because NYC management had no idea of their value - what these were. Management could only understand what they could see. A video disc that was marketed ten years after VCR technology was already being sold using proven and more reliable recording medias.
Yes, RCA even had Liquid Crystal Display technology in the late 1960s in Raritan NJ. An RCA LCD would even display DOS in 1981. Even that had no value or purpose to RCA management - that could only invest in old technology they understood - video discs.
How myopic were some in RCA. When I first saw the video disc, I saw a major new technology. For example, it could be a dictionary or other large databases connected to a PC - that did not yet even have a hard disk. One RCA manager told me with contempt, "Why would anyone need that?"