VHS VIDEO VENDOR MACHINES 1984

Hookindafoot

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Just caught this series on youtube, hilarious and pretty interesting too.
Looks like they were made in Chicago? 700 ilbs Empty🤣. 70 Grand Original Manufacture Price?😳.
Someone probably figured out it was cheaper just to higher a 16 yrar old and put them behind a counter.🤣
Had to be less than 1000 originally made? I wonder how many were ever active?
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Manhattan Project (1986) Technolgy Used
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Interesting, Pretty complex machine to rent VHS in 1984-85. Essex? apparently there was an Essex Video company that went bankrupt in 1988. Looks like they distrubuted adult films? I wonder if they are the same company?

There can't be many out there complete and working? Apparently some guy in Texas has over a hundred in a warehouse? But they are missing the counterweghts? Which pretty much makes them a shelf.

Run Revision: 200-500?
Price: they couldn't of been charging more than 5-15 grand? per machine.SRP?
Highly flawed business model, though. At that time VHS Film tapes were selling for sometimes close to 100 bucks a pop or more. So that means $32,000 of product in each machine? You couldn't leave something like that on a street corner.
Someone probably went hiome with a heck of a film library before they figured that out? :50:
So basically it became for indoor use only. Probably only made it to a few grocery stores, would be my guess. Mostly in the Midwest. Only thing that makes sense?

That Probably was them that went bankrupt in 1988. Which explains a little bit.
 
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Meh, Essex must of been trying to put them in Strip clubs, Clip joints and Adult Book stores? Probably first time a person under 18 that got a Credit card probably made them unlawful. 4.99 to 6,99 per rental sounds a little excessive, probably was used for adult rentals.
I have only seen one other in operation, reciept printed out says Slappy's Sex Shop, so there you have it.
 
Hi. I'm SpaceTime Junction and restored the machine I bought in Ohio. Essex was a poorly named company that was an offshoot of ABM international who built robotic sewing apparatuses. Here's the patent for their work (see image). A few machines were discovered during the course of my restoration but the Big Kahoona came when a warehouse north of Dallas revealed the previous owner had 90+ machines that'd never been used in storage. My part 9 covers all the details if you'd like specifics:

 

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Hi. I'm SpaceTime Junction and restored the machine I bought in Ohio. Essex was a poorly named company that was an offshoot of ABM international who built robotic sewing apparatuses. Here's the patent for their work (see image). A few machines were discovered during the course of my restoration but the Big Kahoona came when a warehouse north of Dallas revealed the previous owner had 90+ machines that'd never been used in storage. My part 9 covers all the details if you'd like specifics:

Interesting.
Is there a chance the 90 plus machines could be made operational? I think you stated that the machines were missing the counterweights and a few other parts? Can you confirm?
Not sure what the counterweights are made of? Lead or Aluminum? You would probably need a cast of the counterweights to have a chance at making them operational. If they indeed are missing.
 
It might be a fun project to get one and try to make it operational. After watching your video, though probably against the odds. Most likely requiring a Herculean effort. They probably never even had programing codes installed. Along with the VHS tape marking kit. Probably be pretty tough.
 
My machine has the counterweights and I've taken them off and weighed/photographed them. It's occasionally fully operational though I really need to replace all of the opto ICs not just the two that were in bad shape. I haven't been to see the 90 machines as it's 5+ hours away and I don't have any room for another one of these at my house. So in theory someone could buy one (most of which have never been used and still have their factory manuals and other new out of box stuff) and at least make it somewhat functional if you have a limited understanding of what failed on my machine. Mine was in heavy use as a video vending machine until the mid 90s so it's a bit of a different situation. They're not mine so I can't really speak for Trey the guy who owns them beyond what video he has sent me.
 

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It might be a fun project to get one and try to make it operational. After watching your video, though probably against the odds. Most likely requiring a Herculean effort. They probably never even had programing codes installed. Along with the VHS tape marking kit. Probably be pretty tough.
I'm not sure how it's a Herculean effort as neither of us knows the condition of the machines but making one functional for public use is probably ill advised. However, having one as a retrotech display makes for a heck of a way to showcase videotapes — plus it blends in well if you own arcade games. Just saying. 😃
 
I'm not sure how it's a Herculean effort as neither of us knows the condition of the machines but making one functional for public use is probably ill advised. However, having one as a retrotech display makes for a heck of a way to showcase videotapes — plus it blends in well if you own arcade games. Just saying. 😃
Ok, I was under the impression that you had seen the machines in person. I could of sworn I heard you say that parts were missing on the Machines in Storage? If The machines are complete with everything essential to marking tapes definetely would make it easier (besides moving it that is)🤣.

No, I wouldn't be putting it back in service to the public🤣
Might be an interesting video to see at least one of the Warehouse Video Vendors restored just for sh*ts & Giggles.
Interesting Story
My guess is there was probably only about 200 made? With most likely a pretty hefty price tag new.
Pretty much paper weights now, though. Especially if they don't have all the components to function.
 
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Ok, I was under the impression that you had seen the machines in person. I could of sworn I heard you say that parts were missing on the Machines in Storage? If The machines are complete with everything essential to marking tapes definetely would make it easier (besides moving it that is)🤣.

No, I wouldn't be putting it back in service to the public🤣
Might be an interesting video to see at least one of the Warehouse Video Vendors restored just for sh*ts & Giggles.
Interesting Story
My guess is there was probably only about 200 made? With most likely a pretty hefty price tag new.
Pretty much paper weights now, though. Especially if they don't have all the components to function.
There were way more than 200 made, for sure. Whatever the number, most of them were broken down and junked with the odd exception of these machines in the warehouse. To the best of my understanding from Trey (who again owns the machines and knows what is in them and has physical access to them), they were not used and have whatever came with a new machine in the coinbox. The counterweights were removed by his father-in-law who has since passed and sold for whatever lead was going for at the time to make him some money. He was using the machines sort of as hallways for displaying art and other purposes according to Trey. I'm just the messenger and if you want to know anything I'd recommend contacting Trey (his contact info is in the description of the video I linked to). Just so you aren't going in completely blind, Trey tells me that a LOT of people contact him but very few commit. He's probably getting a little worn down by the tire kickers so keep that in mind. He has told me if the machines are not all sold soon he plans to have them sent to the dump. These machines don't have an infinite timeline for being available if someone wants to adopt one.

M
 
I was hoping there would be some arcade games in the warehouse. Nope.

I thought "Maybe we can re-purpose the screens? Nah, probably not. All green.

Seems like a nobly futile effort. Nice work!
 
Meh, Essex must of been trying to put them in Strip clubs, Clip joints and Adult Book stores? Probably first time a person under 18 that got a Credit card probably made them unlawful. 4.99 to 6,99 per rental sounds a little excessive, probably was used for adult rentals.
I have only seen one other in operation, reciept printed out says Slappy's Sex Shop, so there you have it.

Judging from the imagery on the monitors, you're probably right. Adult video on VHS was big business back then.

I could also see these being used in malls and other similar high traffic, enclosed areas for SFW content.
 
Judging from the imagery on the monitors, you're probably right. Adult video on VHS was big business back then.

I could also see these being used in malls and other similar high traffic, enclosed areas for SFW content.
Yeah, there were some big problems with their Business model. also back then Mainstream VHS cassete movies were like 100 bucks a pop too. It was crazy, if you lost a VHS rental you were going to be out maybe close to a hundred bucks or more, so a machine filled with 320 100 dollar tapes sitting outside, that was 32 grand worth of merchandise?? Another thing was the machine only distrubuted vhs tapes without the cases??? Just Bizarre, unless Timerunner88 had the machine set up wrong.
Heres a 100 dollar VHS Tape, without a case, good luck. 🤣

That machine must of had to have cases for those VHS tapes. Just doesn't make sense???
 
Trey tells me that a LOT of people contact him but very few commit. He's probably getting a little worn down by the tire kickers so keep that in mind. He has told me if the machines are not all sold soon he plans to have them sent to the dump. These machines don't have an infinite timeline for being available if someone wants to adopt one.
Kind of unfortunate but kinda get it when it's a machine that only a niche group of collectors would have the interest, space, and ability to repair to have one.
 
Yeah, there were some big problems with their Business model. also back then Mainstream VHS cassete movies were like 100 bucks a pop too. It was crazy, if you lost a VHS rental you were going to be out maybe close to a hundred bucks or more, so a machine filled with 320 100 dollar tapes sitting outside, that was 32 grand worth of merchandise?? Another thing was the machine only distrubuted vhs tapes without the cases??? Just Bizarre, unless Timerunner88 had the machine set up wrong.
Heres a 100 dollar VHS Tape, without a case, good luck. 🤣

That machine must of had to have cases for those VHS tapes. Just doesn't make sense???
No, tapes were supposed to be bare in order to read the mirror bar code on the actual cassette. I have a feeling there were clear plastic cases adjacent to the machine provided to pop your cassette in once you got it out of the machine, but that may have been something the operators did on their own to protect the tape from damage. Nowadays an RF code reader allows including the media inside a case, but back then you had to verify the actual physical object (the cassette) was what was being rented. Good times. My machine has the tapes in their boxes but that is for my display preferences. When I demo a tape being rented, it's always using a cassette in the way the machine instructions specify. Those are all online if you want to check them out. It's a chill read.

 
I was hoping there would be some arcade games in the warehouse. Nope.

I thought "Maybe we can re-purpose the screens? Nah, probably not. All green.

Seems like a nobly futile effort. Nice work!
These are TTL green screens so they wouldn't accept composite video (or any other analog type video signal) even if you wanted them to. I am working on populating some little adapters so that you can put a regular composite screen in the machine and still see the TTL text but have the option to pipe in video, too. I'm slow, though.
 
The first idea I had is it could be repurposed to hold dad's, but alas, the disc is wider than a vhes tape I think. But, you could hollow out a VHS tape and store video game cartridges in 'em.

Such a cool find! Thanks for posting!
 
The first idea I had is it could be repurposed to hold dad's, but alas, the disc is wider than a vhes tape I think. But, you could hollow out a VHS tape and store video game cartridges in 'em.

Such a cool find! Thanks for posting!
If you wanted to just acquire a machine to store your DVDs instead of the usual VHS or Beta tape, I've verified that two standard DVD cases does do nicely in the space of a single VHS tape as shown below. So you could store 640 DVDs in the machine. A lot of people think they need to make the machine fully functional but unless you spend the time to create the mirrored bar codes on every tape and enter them all into the machine (everything is highly manual) you will hate life when you're done. Probably.
 

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If you wanted to just acquire a machine to store your DVDs instead of the usual VHS or Beta tape, I've verified that two standard DVD cases does do nicely in the space of a single VHS tape as shown below. So you could store 640 DVDs in the machine. A lot of people think they need to make the machine fully functional but unless you spend the time to create the mirrored bar codes on every tape and enter them all into the machine (everything is highly manual) you will hate life when you're done. Probably.
That's probably the way to go. Sounds like it would be a big job to get it up and running, sounds like even the one you restored has problems.
Intersting find though, It would probably be an intersting conversation piece at least.
 
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