http://65c02.org/images/ak/vtc7100.jpg

Here's an unusal VCR that I picked up last week. It's a Sanyo VTC-7100 Vcord portapack. Google doesn't know much about these, most mentioned I find are for the later Vcord-II color machines. Depending on where you look it's dates at anywhere from 1971 to 1978, though 1978 seems too late for a B&W format. I've seen no mention of the Vcord format in any of my magazines from the period (though various reel to reel formats, Philips VCR and Umatic got coverage prior to the arrival of Beta and VHS).

It has a 10 pin camera connector, 3 pin DC power connector and a 6 pin DIN connector than I assume is AV in/out. If I ever manage to find any tapes I should be able to work something out. I have seen a couple of orphan tapes in the past, but I didn't think to pick them up at the time.

All controls appear to be completely mechanical.

http://65c02.org/images/ak/vtc7100open.jpg

Wow! Thats a sweet recorder! I would love to see some of the tapes this thing uses. Looks like they were somewhere between the size of a Beta and a VHS.

Labguy's world (http://www.labguysworld.com/Sanyo_VTC-7100.htm) has an entry on the VTC-7100 with pictures of the tapes and the matching VC-500 camera.

These machines seemed to be popular in medical and biological research. Most of the hits on google are passing mentions in various research articles. Indeed Labguy's first encounter with them was servicing them as part of a cardiac imaging machines.

My one doesn't appear to have some from a research lab though as it have none of the usual asset tags or markings. The name/address label suggests it was someone's personal machine. I can't help but wonder if the junk dealer I bought this from may have overlooked a pile a odd cassettes on the same garbage pile thinking it was an audio recorder. This week the same dealer actually has a Sanyo audio cassette deck that looks very similar to this unit in terms of control layout and finish right down to the fake leather carry case.

Neat! I've never seen a portable V-Cord VCR, but I have seen a few of the regular table-top V-Cord II models. I remember sometime in the mid-80's (probably 1986 or '87) there was a local appliance dealer that *still* had two leftover unsold Sanyo V-Cord II VCRs on the shelf. Those things never moved even as the store kept lowering the price. The last time I saw them there, I think they were down to $49 or so-- this being at a time when a low-end VHS deck was still around $300. I dunno what eventually became of them...

As I recall, V-Cord / V-Cord II tapes were roughly the size of Betamax casettes but with a built-in "handle" on one of the the short edges that made them longer by an inch or so. As dr.ido points out, Labguy's world is a great resource about defunct video formats and equipment.