Special:Badtitle/NS90:Milestone-Proposal talk:Ampex Videotape Recorder - 1956/Citation/reply

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Revision as of 06:32, 11 October 2013 by Schodge (talk | contribs) (Reply to Citation)
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Both proposers respectively disagree with these suggested edits.

Calling kinescopes impractical is not meant as, nor should it be interpreted as, a slight against the engineers who worked on it. In the EE fields in particular, technology has a habit of causing its own obseletion, since people adopt the technology and push it beyond its designed bounds. If the kinescope had been fully satisfactory, there would be no need to develop the VTR in the first place. The reference to the kinescope, and its limitations, exists to (a) place the VTR in its historical context and (b) convey some of the motivations for its development.

The reference to the VTR's successors is there for essentially the same reasons. It primarily fixes in time where this Milestone saw its primary use; for the reader paying careful attention, it prompts them to think what about the VTR was impractical that necessitated further innovation. Personally, I would argue that the fact that it took digital recording to really replace analog magnetic recording heightens the accomplishment; the original idea was good enough that substantial improvement required building off 20+ years of semiconductor and CS R&D.