As regular readers will know, I have accumulated quite a pile of operationally-challenged video recorders. In this project, I decided to upgrade an old Sanyo Betamax machine to being a fully-fledged modern PC with USB, Firewire, ethernet, buckets of ram, disk space and so on. It took a solid 12 hours, complete with self-inflicted hacksaw blade injuries, blood, sweat and cheers, some double-sided sticky tape and a bit of metal I chopped out of an old DVD player (from another collection of scrap). Managed to use some of the original front-panel buttons and LEDs. Anyway, the pictures tell the story, and the result is a very functional box which has direct TV output and would not look out of place in any modern early-eighties household. Could do with the cables being tidied up a bit, but apart from that, nice.
Oh Yeah . . In response to pressure from the readership, here's the tech specs . .
Sanyo Betacord VTC-5000 Mains electricity Assorted computer bits and pieces
