<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Some interesting background from Jim Wheeler.<div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div><div>Best,</div><div>Park</div><div><br></div></div><div>C. Park Seward</div><div>Visit us: <a href="http://www.videopark.com">http://www.videopark.com</a></div></span></div></span></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>Re: Early Helical Scan concept at AMPEX</b></font></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </div><div>Around 1953, Charlie Ginsberg hired Charlie Anderson and Alex Maxey to be on the team to develop a videotape recorder. Charlie A and Maxey rented an apartment in Redwood City. One evening, they were sitting in their living room discussing possible methods for recording video on mag tape. Several people had tried linear recording at high tape speeds and they all failed. Maxey had a cardboard core of a roll of toilet paper and he wrapped a long and narrow strip of paper around it in various ways. He liked the idea of a 360 degree wrap and made a sketch of a tilted scanner with in and out guides. It did not have to be a full 360 degrees because of the vertical interval. I believe that he used an audio deck as the base. <br> <br> After Maxey played with various ideas, Charlie G believed that helical had too many potential problems so Maxey tried another one of his "crazy" ideas. He used four inch wide mag tape and cupped it around a small diameter electric motor. This was the beginning of the quad format. They had calculated that they needed a 2,000 ips head-tape speed. Maxey found a motor that met his requirements using two inch wide tape.He first tried a male guide that cupped the tape properly. He could not get the head-tape contact he needed so he developed a female guide. This worked and made reasonably good video using a special tape that 3M had made for Ampex.<br> <br> Actually, Maxey did not initiate the idea of cupping the tape. That was Alan Camas in Chicago.<br> <br> Meantime, Charlie A had accidentally discovered a way of recording a wide bandwidth of video using a vestigial sideband FM. This meant that 2,000 ips was no longer required and made it easier for Maxey. <br> <br> Maxey was a mechanical genius and later developed both the Type A and the Type B formats. I was one of the engineers who developed the Type C format. Quad never got a SMPTE letter designation. Maxey is credited with inventing the word "glitch" when he was working on the NASA Atlas project in the late fifties.<br> <br> Charlie A lives in the Reno area. Both Maxey and Charlie G died several years ago.<br> <br> Jim Wheeler</div></blockquote></div></div></body></html>