Before Beta Max and VHS: Home video pioneer explains technological evolution

Vintage Cartivision machine, part of Robert Spaun's collection.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Before Beta Max and VHS, there was Cartrivision, which was an analog videocassette format introduced in 1972. Robert Spaun was looking at a catalog that came in the mail from Olson Electronics. They were selling the Cartrivision Video Tape Recorders. The company started in 1970, and by 1973 they were bankrupt and gone. They made thousands of Cartrivision units during that time.

“They had a large bankruptcy auction for the Cartrivision Company, and surplus dealers bought the inventory and were selling it at greatly reduced prices,” Robert said. “I bought my first one from Olson Electronics, which was a package deal: A video tape recorder, several tapes, a black and white TV camera, and a microphone.

“I had to figure out how to hook it up to the TV, because TVs didn’t have audio and video inputs like the later sets had. There was one of our neighbors up on McKinley street, who had an old 25-inch console TV. My friend, Steve Terry, put it in a wagon on his lawnmower and brought it down the hill, and we carried it inside. I ended up modifying the TV so I could tap off the video from the TV, in order to record off the TV, and also modified it so I could play the video back into the TV.”

About that time, he said, “I saw an ad in Popular Electronics Magazine. A guy in San Jose, Calif., bought machines at auction and he was selling them via the ad. It was Dennis Trimble. We ultimately spent hours and hours on the phone. I was learning how the video worked and how to repair the machine. Eventually I learned enough about the machines. Dennis would purchase machines and send them to me. I was repairing them and shipping them out to his final customers. Dennis and I are still good friends to this day.”Robert had an office on the second floor of the Hornback Building, Fifth and Broadway, where he set up his Cartrivision repair shop. “After working the day at Hannibal Carbide, I’d go down there in the evenings and repair Cartrivisions.

“Home video was right on the cutting edge,” he said, “there weren’t many people who knew anything about it, it was all so new. Dennis was very helpful. He referred me to Andy Rosen in Chicago. Andy had been working with video for a number of years. I spent hours on the phone, him explaining things to me. Andy eventually went out to Los Angeles and he was doing video consulting equipment, for customers there, and eventually he moved to Oregon and started working for Microsoft. He worked on developing a video system for them, called Zune. It was a hand-held video player. When cell phones came out, it made that project obsolete, thus Microsoft pulled the plug on the project and laid everyone off. I talk to him every now and then and we visited him in Seattle this June.

Career is born

“Dennis Trimble wanted me to try to drum up more business to sell the Cartrivision equipment, so I went to a Ham fest for radio enthusiasts in a park in Washington, Mo. I set up a demonstration in the bandstand in the park. I’d tell people all about them, and hand out Dennis’ information.

“I ran into a guy, Gary Kenney. He worked for Harris Corp. as a field service engineer. We became friends. We’d talk video. We ended up swapping equipment back and forth; just casual friends.

“One day while I was working at Hannibal Carbide, our plant manager, Harry Graham, came up to me and said, ‘I’ve got a phone call for you at my desk.’ It was Jim Brown, manager over the parts department at Harris. Gary Kenney had recommended me for a job.

“That Friday I went up to do an interview, and got a job second shift in the parts department. About a year later, I got a job in the repair department, where I worked until my my retirement at the end of 2023.

Jim Brown, who hired me, said, “You had no training in electronics. What really convinced me, I talked to Harry Graham (at Hannibal Carbide) who spoke so highly of you, I decided to go for you.”

"I ran into Harry later at the car wash, and thanked him for that. He was a good guy. He convinced them to hire me, give me a chance.

“My sister, Mary Lou, helped me write a resume. It is the only resume I’ve done in my whole life.

“Later I purchased an Akai VT150 1/4 inch video recorder with a color camera from KSD TV in St. Louis which I still have. It is a very rare item these days. Then I upgraded to professional machines at that time witch used the Sony Umatic three-quarter inch format.”

“I still have a nice collection of Cartrivision units and parts and I hope to get one of them working again, he said.