Shoutout to Mr. and Mrs. “E” for their upstairs and downstairs VCRs always set to the correct time.
Related Question: What is the 2025 equivalent to this?
It’s not that it was difficult to set the clock. It’s that you had to do it every time the power blinked, and most people didn’t use the timer function to record things very often.
True, but so did the oven and microwave clocks (and clock radios if you didn’t keep the 9V backup battery maintained). Clock radios are kind-of a given by their nature, but most of the time the oven and microwave clocks would get reset.
not in our household. every clock was secondary/non-important after the wall clock
I still frequently use the microwave and oven clocks for their time telling capabilities. I never really did use the vcr for that reason because it was in tiny digits that made it hard to see across the room. I did set the vcr because it annoyed me if it was blinking, but I didn’t look to it for the time.
I guess the modern equivalent to not setting the vcr clock is having all the default ring tones and notification noises for all your apps.
I guess the modern equivalent to not setting the vcr clock is having all the default ring tones and notification noises for all your apps.
That was pretty much what I was thinking of: default ringtone, full volume.
No, VCR blinked if you coughed. Those things were far more sensitive.
Plus there were still a lot of analog electric clocks on stoves during the VCR era.
And don’t get me started on the microwave.
Screw setting all those clocks whenever the power burps. If you ever lived where this occurs almost daily, you’d understand.
Plus, setting a VCR clock was always a pain in the ass.
And don’t get me started on the microwave.
It knows what it did!
Plus, setting a VCR clock was always a pain in the ass.
Some were, some weren’t. I remember we had 3 different VCRs, and it was always different.
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Oldest one. It had a row of like 30 buttons behind a pull-down panel. You held 'Clock" until the hours started flashing, used the up and down buttons to set the hour. Press clock again to switch to the minutes (same arrow keys to adjust), then one final press of “Clock” to lock it in. Literally the same way my oven clock is set.
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Just press “Menu” then “Clock” and type the time in on the remote.
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Newest: It was automatic. It picked up the time from the PBS channel and set itself.
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Wife and I don’t fix clocks on any appliance in the house, never have, don’t care. Either it picks up time from the daily signal in Colorado or we ignore it but there’s no way we’re setting it every time power blips. We fall in the middle of GenX.
Are power outages that common over there?
I mean… I just stopped caring when we were having power outages every other day making me have to reset nearly every clock in the house. I’m tech savvy. But I am also lazy.
Fixing the wifi when it is down is the equivalent but I still think we should test all potential legislators on their ability to program the VCR clock.
Gen X and Millennials are probably the only ones who could program a VCR. Boomers would expect someone else to just take care of it, and Gen Z/Alpha prob wouldn’t even know what they’re looking at.
There are Genz who are older than the DVD. I’m certain that the majority of them would know what a VCR is. Unless they were very rich, they still watched movies on tape when they were little. That’s before we talk about how the VCR//DVD combo unit was the most popular option well into the DVD life cycle because most people didn’t want to re-buy what they already had on tape. VCR didn’t really die until Blu-ray kicked it off the combo unit with the DVD which wasn’t until like 2007. Some of them were in middle school by then
I’m a gen Z, we still had VCRs and CRT TVs when I was a kid. We weren’t quick to switch to DVD and didn’t have an LCD screen til the mid 2010s. Schools were still using the TVs on wheels with VCRs as well, half of them had “be cafeful, it eats tape!” labels on them.
The DVD became popular in the late 1990s-early 2000s. My PC in 1997 had a DVD player
Yup. Released in 97’ in the US. Not sure why you felt this needed to be added, but yes. You have stated several true facts.
Which is why it would be a good test for current legislators.
Programming a VCR is in a whole other ballpark than just getting the time ok, there was this girl at school who casually recorded like TV2 at 18:30 to 20:15 and watched TV1 at the same time. I was blown away, such a power move.
That is a power move lol. I would just tape Power Rangers and Pokemon during the day to watch after I got my homework done.
Gen Z would pull up search engine lookup and get this: https://www.neuralword.com/en/innovation-technology/tv-audio-home-video-en/how-to-record-a-tv-program-using-a-vcr-a-step-by-step-guide
Yeah, maybe. But if we put them in a locked room with nothing besides a wall clock, a VCR, and the TV it’s connected to, and the door doesn’t open until the VCR clock is set correctly, I think Gen X / Millennials are the only ones getting out of that room.
Ah yes. The “twelve clock flashers” anyone on here old enough to remember the bit that was floating around forums in the 90s?
What time is it at Billy’s house? 12 o clock! 12 o clock!
The only clock I don’t bother setting was the one on our old coffee maker. It kept lousy time and would drift by a significant amount. We’d never use the timer functionality of it anyway so I just left the stupid thing be.
Long ago I had an alarm clock that docked with my original iPhone and it not only didn’t support 24 hour time, but drifted. Remarkable.
I don’t know, I always reset it. It’s one more clock to remind me of how much/little time I have while I’m drinking coffee first thing in the morning.
Our kitchen has several visible clocks but the adjoining dining room deliberately has none for that very reason.
