Younger writers. Please, just know that you could not skip to different songs on a cassette tape, that’s CDs. With tapes you pressed fast forward or rewind and prayed.
Also, VHS tapes did not have menu screens. Your only options were play, fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or eject.
Y’all are making me feel like the crypt keeper here, I’m begging you 😭
reblog to instantly disintegrate some of your peers to dust
You also cannot turn on subtitles on a VHS tape. It either has captions or doesn't. Usually doesn't.
❌ wait no that's wrong! videos did have subtitles you just needed to know how to see them and have compatible equipment!
open captions = permanent subtitles, no on or off.
closed captions = optional subtitles which are only visible if you turn them on.
we're incredibly used to this on modern media formats (including youtube CC), but they've existed since the 1970s and have been ubiquitous in the USA since the 90s because they passed a law requiring that TV sets must be able to decode the CC signal. Accessibility win for the USA I have to say, whereas the UK required that closed captions be written but failed to enshrine the ability to read them into the receiving tech (honestly, typical).
There were (are) symbols on VHSs indicating closed captions could be turned on using your TV but in the UK they required a special decoder box between the VCR and TV to enable the TV to interpret the signal. So only people who wanted or needed them ever bothered (or were even able) to turn them on, and if you grew up with VHS but didn't use or need them, you might never notice they were there.
[here's a useful vid if you want a good grounding in the history from a US perspective]
