Beta and Communism


Andrew Bowers

E-mail: falcon_*geocities.com
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Current Beta Machines: Newer Toshiba front-loader w/o remote

My history teacher is quite rough on me. One day in class I was showing a friend my Zenith/Sony Beta two-piece camcorder [manufactured January 1982!] when the teacher walked by. He stopped and gave me that "Why do you have that old piece of crap??" look, which was followed by "Why do you have that old pile of junk??". Once I told him it was Beta, he looked at me and said "BETA??? What are you, a Communist??". This was followed by snickers, pointing, and "Beta... hehehe!" from some classmates, and astonishment by some others [One really fine chick thought it was 'cool'] when I explained that Beta was a superior video recording format that died out due to poor parkenting strategies.

I sure was pissed when my English teacher wouldn't let me do my research paper on the video format wars of the 1980s...


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Submitted Sun, 13 Jun 1999 07:58:11 GMT