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| In a way the Machtronics disc unit did for the VR1000 slomo machine, what the VR1000 did for VERA some eight years earlier. Our first one arrived in 1966 - I suspect it was on loan as, in Don Kershaw's excellent machine records (see Hardware section), our own is not recorded as arriving until early 1967. The one in the picture, which is a frame grab from a film made during the World Cup, was purely stop frame (it would play normal speed and then freeze). The later one was variable speed, but in fixed increments - it was not until the advent of the Ampex HS100 that variable speeds from normal to freeze on a control would be available. The unit was pretty small by the videotape standards of the day and could be fitted on that most VT of all devices - a trolley! The later unit had a remote control panel for the operator to avoid sitting with the machine as Jonathan Martin is doing in the picture. Labguys World have another variant of the machine - the link will take you to their web page - they are also accessible from our Links page. Not long after it's arrival, we took delivery of the HS100 and the Machtronics went to Glasgow and was sold off in 1971. |