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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

Or program a VCR at all. That is literally a phrase that is used to refer to difficult and arcane tasks.

Or you program the VCR and it starts and stops recording in time. But the TV schedule is so off that you miss that movie completely. I swear that in Croatia, in the 90's, announced tv schedule was just a suggestion of what they might put on at around that timeframe. Except Santa Barbara, people went mad if that wasn't on schedule :)

This still happens in Australia with free to air channels on Digital TV

Didn't you have this code programming I was describing in my other comment?

I am surprised at the number of comments to this effect on a site where I am normally in awe of the depth and breadth of technical knowledge, and the willingness to learn by doing, that is displayed. I found VCRs easy enough to use and only ever got caught out by Programme Delivery Control.

I completely agree with you about programming VCRs. Despite being in my teenage years around their peak usage, I found it quite easy to do.

Xerox and fax machines, on the other hand, are the work of the devil.

There's a major difference between people on this site (who likely had no issue scheduling a VCR) and the average consumer.

A sizable chunk of humanity, from my experience, is scared to even try.

I should have been more clear: Several posters here on HN indicated they struggled with VCRs, and that is what I found surprising.

My aunt used to have two VCRs and an alarm clock. She'd use the alarm to remind her to hit record. She struggled with the timer, but I don't think she trusted it to record what she asked it to.

It's now 2016. She's got two DVRs... and an alarm clock.

To clarify, I'm not claiming that programming a VCR actually is difficult. I don't know, because I'm slightly too young to have ever tried it. I was merely pointing out that "VCR programming is difficult" is or was a cultural meme.

I don't know about the US, but in Europe we had this dead easy code programming (forgot what the name for it was). Each show had a code printed next to it in the weekly showtime guide. You'd open up some VCR menu, enter the code, and thus program the thing in 10 seconds. It would start recording at exactly the right time because the channel would send a special signal together with the beginning of the show. Worked 100% at least 80% of the time ;).

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