YouTube Celebrates 57 Years of VCR With an Analog Video Mode

Do not adjust your computer screens. There's no problem with YouTube, other than the fact that it's getting a little misty eyed—by choosing to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the VCR with a little added analog character on its digital videos.

On plenty of YouTube videos you can currently find a small VCR button: click it, and the video you're watching will start to display some of those wonderful (awful?) characteristics that your old cassette player used to provide. It's a quirky way of celebrating the Ampex VRX-1000—commonly considered the world's first practical videotape recorder when it was launched on April 14th 1956 at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters Convention. The device made a lasting impression on home entertainment, but thank goodness things have moved on. More here.