"Mister Betamax"
Age: 63
Company: Mister Betamax
Technology: Betamaxes
Number of repairs: 2-3 a week
Location: Lyman, S.C.
In 1975, Mister Betamax became one of the first to own Sony's proprietary videocassette recording machine. He paid around $1,000--more than $4,000 if you adjust for inflation. Thus began his lifelong hobby gone wild.
"There is a certain amount of creature comfort in using one of these devices," says Mister Betamax, who asked us not to use his real name to maintain privacy. "Sony sold Beta format on ease of operation, so if you actually used the machine for recording and editing it was a dream to behold."
Mister Betamax launched his website in 2002, around the same time Sony stopped making the video cassette recorders. Now he does repairs with his enormous stockpile of parts and some that Sony still supplies. He recommends that most people convert their Betamax tapes to DVD but keep their machines as backup.
NEXT: Duncan Hunter
