THE Y2K CRISIS! VHS VIDEO & WORKBOOK survival guide Robert Stack sealed vtg RARE

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Seller: sidewaysstairsco ✉️ (1,180) 100%, Location: Santa Ana, California, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 202940649488 THE Y2K CRISIS! VHS VIDEO & WORKBOOK survival guide Robert Stack sealed vtg RARE. Check out our store for more great vintage, new, and used items! FOR SALE: A video and booklet preparedness set for the "Year 2000 Problem" THE Y2K CRISIS!: A MILLENNIUM BUG SURVIVAL GUIDE DETAILS: Features Robert Stack from the classic TV show Unsolved Mysteries ! Step back in time and prepare for the Y2K Crisis with "The Y2K Crisis!: A Millennium Bug Survival Guide". This vintage video and booklet set, hosted by the legendary Robert Stack from Unsolved Mysteries, is a must-have for anyone who lived through the uncertainty and fear surrounding the Year 2000 Problem. In the late 1990s, the looming threat of the Millennium Bug sent waves of panic across the nation. This survival media kit was created to provide essential advice on computer preparedness and how the Y2K bug could potentially disrupt our daily lives, whether we owned a computer or not. Computers were at the heart of our 21st Century lifestyle, and on January 1, 2000, date-sensitive programs, data, and embedded chips were at risk of malfunctioning, posing a threat to our society as a whole. Expert warnings, manager preparations, and government concerns all pointed to one thing – the Millennium Bug was a problem that required everyone's attention. "The Y2K Crisis!: A Millennium Bug Survival Guide" delves deep into the issue, offering a sobering assessment of the potential impact and providing a plan for personal protection and involvement to mitigate the consequences. This invaluable information is crucial for every family and small business owner to have in their possession. Extremely rare pre-Y2K media! This hard-to-find piece of pre-Y2K media, complete with an investigative report hosted by Robert Stack, is a true gem for collectors and nostalgia enthusiasts alike. This special media package evidently had a very limited run in production and we have never found another in existence, complete or otherwise, and many extensive online searches have been conducted on various occasions. Don't miss your chance to own a piece of history and revisit the time when the entire world held its breath as the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000. "Whether you own a computer or not, the Millennium Bug CAN and WILL affect your life for years to come. Think about it... Computers are involved in almost every aspect of our 21st Century lifestyle. On January 1, 2000, millions of date-sensitive programs, data and embedded chips could malfunction jeopardizing our society. Experts expect it, managers are preparing for it, governments are dreading it. What are YOU going to do about it? If you think it's not your problem, THINK AGAIN. It's everybody's problem. You need to be ready. This investigative report goes right to the top. Credible sources furnish an objective but sobering assessment of the problem and how it could affect each of us at different levels. In addition, a plan is offered for personal protection and involvement to help keep the consequences to a minimum. This is information every family and small business owner should have... Act now. Tomorrow could be too late." (workbook back) CONDITION: New; sealed. The packaging and video sleeve corners have acquired some storage damage. Please see photos. Shipping cost includes signature confirmation delivery. To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING. QUESTIONS? JUST ASK. *ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.* "The Year 2000 problem, also known as the Y2K problem, the Millennium bug, Y2K bug, the Y2K glitch, or Y2K, refers to events related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates beginning in the year 2000. Problems were anticipated, and arose, because many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits – making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. The assumption of a twentieth-century date in such programs could cause various errors, such as the incorrect display of dates and the inaccurate ordering of automated dated records or real-time events. In 1997, the British Standards Institute (BSI) developed standard DISC PD2000-1 defining "Year 2000 Conformity requirements" as four rules:[1] No valid date will cause any interruption in operations.[1] Date-based functionality must behave consistently for dates prior to, during and after year 2000.[1] In all interfaces and in all storage, the century must be unambiguous, either specified, or calculable by algorithm.[1] Year 2000 must be recognised as a leap year.[1] It identifies two problems that may exist in many computer programs. First, the practice of representing the year with two digits became problematic with logical error(s) arising upon "rollover" from xx99 to xx00. This had caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after 1 January 2000, and on other critical dates which were billed "event horizons". Without corrective action, long-working systems would break down when the "... 97, 98, 99, 00 ..." ascending numbering assumption suddenly became invalid. Secondly, some programmers had misunderstood the Gregorian calendar rule that determines whether years that are exactly divisible by 100 are not leap years, and assumed that the year 2000 would not be a leap year. In reality, there is a rule in the Gregorian calendar system that states years divisible by 400 are leap years – thus making 2000 a leap year. Correcting all of this, however, was not the largest part of the problem. By 1997, AT&T had estimated that "60% of the time and money needed for its total compliance efforts" would be devoted to testing the source code changes made to address the issue.[2] Companies and organisations in some countries, but not all, checked, fixed, and upgraded their computer systems to address the anticipated problem.[3] Very few computer failures were reported when the clocks rolled over into 2000.... Background[edit] Y2K is a numeronym and was the common abbreviation for the year 2000 software problem. The abbreviation combines the letter Y for "year", the number 2 and a capitalized version of k for the SI unit prefix kilo meaning 1000; hence, 2K signifies 2000. It was also named the "Millennium Bug" because it was associated with the popular (rather than literal) roll-over of the millennium, even though most of the problems could have occurred at the end of any ordinary century. Computerworld's 1993 three-page "Doomsday 2000" article by Peter de Jager was called "the information-age equivalent of the midnight ride of Paul Revere" by The New York Times.[5][6][7] The Year 2000 problem was the subject of the early book, Computers in Crisis by Jerome and Marilyn Murray (Petrocelli, 1984; reissued by McGraw-Hill under the title The Year 2000 Computing Crisis in 1996). The first recorded mention of the Year 2000 Problem on a Usenet newsgroup occurred on 18 January 1985 by poster Spencer Bolles.[8] The acronym Y2K has been attributed to Massachusetts programmer David Eddy[9] in an e-mail sent on 12 June 1995. He later said, "People were calling it CDC (Century Date Change), FADL (Faulty Date Logic). There were other contenders. Y2K just came off my fingertips."[10] The problem started because on both mainframe computers and later personal computers, storage was expensive, from as low as $10 per kilobyte, to in many cases as much as or even more than US$100 per kilobyte.[11] It was therefore very important for programmers to reduce usage. Since programs could simply prefix "19" to the year of a date, most programs internally used, or stored on disc or tape, data files where the date format was six digits, in the form MMDDYY, MM as two digits for the month, DD as two digits for the day, and YY as two digits for the year. As space on disc and tape was also expensive, this also saved money by reducing the size of stored data files and data bases.[12] Some programs, when facing two digit years, could not distinguish between 2000 and 1900. Dire warnings at times were in the mode of: The Y2K problem is the electronic equivalent of the El Niño and there will be nasty surprises around the globe. — John Hamre, United States Deputy Secretary of Defense[13] Options on the De Jager Year 2000 Index, "the first index enabling investors to manage risk associated with the ... computer problem linked to the year 2000" began trading mid-March 1997.[14] Special committees were set up by governments to monitor remedial work and contingency planning, particularly by crucial infrastructures such as telecommunications, utilities and the like, to ensure that the most critical services had fixed their own problems and were prepared for problems with others. While some commentators and experts argued that the coverage of the problem largely amounted to scaremongering,[15] it was only the safe passing of the main "event horizon" itself, 1 January 2000, that fully quelled public fears. Some experts who argued that scaremongering was occurring, such as Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, have since claimed that despite sending out hundreds of press releases about research results suggesting that the problem was not likely to be as big a problem as some had suggested, they were largely ignored by the media.[15] In a similar vein, the Microsoft Press book Running Office 2000 Professional, published in May 1999, accurately predicted that most personal computer hardware and software would be unaffected by the year 2000 problem.[16] Authors Michael Halvorson and Michael Young characterized most of the worries as popular hysteria, an opinion echoed by Microsoft Corp.[17] Programming problem[edit] The practice of using two-digit dates for convenience predates computers, but was never a problem until stored dates were used in calculations. The need for bit conservation... In the first half of the 20th century, well before the computer era, business data processing was done using unit record equipment and punched cards, most commonly the 80-column variety employed by IBM, which dominated the industry. Many tricks were used to squeeze needed data into fixed-field 80-character records. Saving two digits for every date field was significant in this effort. In the 1960s, computer memory and mass storage were scarce and expensive. Early core memory cost one dollar per bit. Popular commercial computers, such as the IBM 1401, shipped with as little as 2 kilobytes of memory.[19] Programs often mimicked card processing techniques. Commercial programming languages of the time, such as COBOL and RPG, processed numbers in their character representations. Over time the punched cards were converted to magnetic tape and then disc files, but the structure of the data usually changed very little. Data was still input using punched cards until the mid-1970s. Machine architectures, programming languages and application designs were evolving rapidly. Neither managers nor programmers of that time expected their programs to remain in use for many decades. The realisation that databases were a new type of program with different characteristics had not yet come. Early attention[edit] There were exceptions, of course. The first person known to publicly address this issue was Bob Bemer, who had noticed it in 1958 as a result of work on genealogical software. He spent the next twenty years trying to make programmers, IBM, the government of the United States and the ISO aware of the problem, with little result. This included the recommendation that the COBOL Picture clause should be used to specify four digit years for dates.[20] In the 1980s the brokerage industry began to address this issue, mostly because of bonds with maturity dates beyond the year 2000. By 1987 the New York Stock Exchange had reportedly spent over $20 million, including "a team of 100" programmers on Y2K.[21] Despite magazine articles on the subject from 1970 onward, the majority of programmers and managers only started recognising Y2K as a looming problem in the mid-1990s, but even then, inertia and complacency caused it to be mostly unresolved until the last few years of the decade. In 1989, Erik Naggum was instrumental in ensuring that internet mail used four digit representations of years by including a strong recommendation to this effect in the internet host requirements document RFC 1123.[22] On April Fools' Day of 1998 some companies set their mainframe computer dates to 2001, so that "the wrong date will be perceived as good fun instead of bad computing" while having a full day of testing.[23] While using 3 digit years and 3 digit dates within that year was used by some, others chose to use the number of days since a fixed date, such as 1 January 1900.[24] Inaction was not an option, and risked major failure. Embedded systems with similar date logic were expected to malfunction and cause utilities and other crucial infrastructure to fail. Saving space on stored dates persisted into the Unix era, with most systems representing dates to a single 32-bit word, typically representing dates as elapsed seconds from some fixed date, which causes the similar Y2K38 problem.... Resulting bugs from date programming... Storage of a combined date and time within a fixed binary field is often considered a solution, but the possibility for software to misinterpret dates remains because such date and time representations must be relative to some known origin. Rollover of such systems is still a problem but can happen at varying dates and can fail in various ways. For example: An upscale grocer's 1997 credit-card caused crash of their 10 cash registers, repeatedly, due to year 2000 expiration dates, was the source of the first Y2K-related lawsuit.[25] The Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program had a very elementary Y2K problem: Excel (in both Windows and Mac versions, when they are set to start at 1900) incorrectly set the year 1900 as a leap year for compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3.[26] In addition, the years 2100, 2200, and so on, were regarded as leap years. This bug was fixed in later versions, but since the epoch of the Excel timestamp was set to the meaningless date of 0 January 1900 in previous versions, the year 1900 is still regarded as a leap year to maintain backward compatibility. In the C programming language, the standard library function to extract the year from a timestamp returns the year minus 1900. Many programs using functions from C, such as Perl and Java, two programming languages widely used in web development, incorrectly treated this value as the last two digits of the year. On the web this was usually a harmless presentation bug, but it did cause many dynamically generated web pages to display 1 January 2000 as "1/1/19100", "1/1/100", or other variants, depending on the display format.[citation needed] JavaScript was changed due to concerns over the Y2K bug, and the return value for years changed and thus differed between versions from sometimes being a four digit representation and sometimes a two-digit representation forcing programmers to rewrite already working code to make sure web pages worked for all versions.[27][28] Older applications written for the commonly used UNIX Source Code Control System failed to handle years that began with the digit "2". In the Windows 3.x file manager, dates displayed as 1/1/19:0 for 1/1/2000 (because the colon is the character after "9" in the ASCII character set). An update was available. Some software, such as Math Blaster Episode I: In Search of Spot[29] which only treats years as two-digit values instead of four, will give a given year as "1900", "1901", and so on, depending on the last two digits of the present year. Date bugs similar to Y2K[edit] Main article: Time formatting and storage bugs 4 January 1975[edit] This date overflowed the 12-bit field that had been used in the Decsystem 10 operating systems. There were numerous problems and crashes related to this bug while an alternative format was developed.[30] 9 September 1999[edit] Even before 1 January 2000 arrived, there were also some worries about 9 September 1999 (albeit less than those generated by Y2K). Because this date could also be written in the numeric format 9/9/99, it could have conflicted with the date value 9999, frequently used to specify an unknown date. It was thus possible that database programs might act on the records containing unknown dates on that day. Data entry operators commonly entered 9999 into required fields for an unknown future date, (e.g., a termination date for cable television or telephone service), in order to process computer forms using CICS software.[31] Somewhat similar to this is the end-of-file code 9999, used in older programming languages. While fears arose that some programs might unexpectedly terminate on that date, the bug was more likely to confuse computer operators than machines. Leap years[edit] Main article: Zeller's congruence Normally, a year is a leap year if it is evenly divisible by four. A year divisible by 100, however, is not a leap year in the Gregorian calendar unless it is also divisible by 400. For example, 1600 was a leap year, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Some programs may have relied on the oversimplified rule that a year divisible by four is a leap year. This method works fine for the year 2000 (because it is a leap year), and will not become a problem until 2100, when older legacy programs will likely have long since been replaced. Other programs contained incorrect leap year logic, assuming for instance that no year divisible by 100 could be a leap year. An assessment of this leap year problem including a number of real life code fragments appeared in 1998.[32] For information on why century years are treated differently, see Gregorian calendar. Year 2010 problem[edit] Some systems had problems once the year rolled over to 2010. This was dubbed by some in the media as the "Y2K+10" or "Y2.01K" problem.[33] The main source of problems was confusion between hexadecimal number encoding and binary-coded decimal encodings of numbers. Both hexadecimal and BCD encode the numbers 0–9 as 0x0–0x9. But BCD encodes the number 10 as 0x10, whereas hexadecimal encodes the number 10 as 0x0A; 0x10 interpreted as a hexadecimal encoding represents the number 16. For example, because the SMS protocol uses BCD for dates, some mobile phone software incorrectly reported dates of SMSes as 2016 instead of 2010. Windows Mobile is the first software reported to have been affected by this glitch; in some cases WM6 changes the date of any incoming SMS message sent after 1 January 2010 from the year "2010" to "2016".[34][35] Other systems affected include EFTPOS terminals,[36] and the PlayStation 3 (except the Slim model).[37] The most important occurrences of such a glitch were in Germany, where upwards of 20 million bank cards became unusable, and with Citibank Belgium, whose digipass customer identification chips failed.[38] Year 2038 problem[edit] Main article: Year 2038 problem The original Unix time datatype (time_t) stores a date and time as a signed long integer (on 32-bit systems a 32-bit integer) representing the number of seconds since 1 January 1970. During and after 2038, this number will exceed 231 − 1, the largest number representable by a signed long integer on 32-bit systems, causing the Year 2038 problem (also known as the Unix Millennium bug or Y2K38). As a long integer in 64-bit systems uses 64 bits, the problem does not realistically exist on 64-bit systems that use the LP64 model.... Government responses[edit] Bulgaria[edit] Although only two digits are allocated for the birth year in the Bulgarian national identification number, the year 1900 problem and subsequently the Y2K problem were addressed by the use of unused values above 12 in the month range. For all persons born before 1900, the month is stored as the calendar month plus 20, and for all persons born after 1999, the month is stored as the calendar month plus 40.[58] Netherlands[edit] The Dutch Government promoted Y2K Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) to share readiness between industries, without threat of antitrust violations or liability based on information shared. Norway and Finland[edit] Norway and Finland changed their national identification number, to indicate the century in which a person was born. In both countries, the birth year was historically indicated by two digits only. This numbering system had already given rise to a similar problem, the "Year 1900 problem", which arose due to problems distinguishing between people born in the 20th and 19th centuries. Y2K fears drew attention to an older issue, while prompting a solution to a new problem. In Finland, the problem was solved by replacing the hyphen ("-") in the number with the letter "A" for people born in the 21st century (for people born before 1900, the sign was already "+"). In Norway, the range of the individual numbers following the birth date was altered from 0–499 to 500–999. Romania[edit] Romania also changed its national identification number in response to the Y2K problem, due to the birth year being represented by only two digits. Before 2000, the first digit, which shows the person's gender, was 1 for males and 2 for females. Starting from 1 January 2000, the Romanian national identification number starts with 5 for males and 6 for females. Uganda[edit] The Ugandan government responded to the Y2K threat by setting up a Y2K Task Force.[59] In August 1999 an independent international assessment by the World Bank International Y2k Cooperation Centre found that Uganda's website was in the top category as "highly informative". This put Uganda in the "top 20" out of 107 national governments, and on a par with the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan, and ahead of Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland which were rated as only "somewhat informative". The report said that "Countries which disclose more Y2k information will be more likely to maintain public confidence in their own countries and in the international markets."[60] United Kingdom[edit] The British government made regular assessments of the progress made by different sectors of business towards becoming Y2K-compliant and there was wide reporting of sectors which were laggards. Companies and institutions were classified according to a traffic light scheme ranging from green "no problems" to red "grave doubts whether the work can be finished in time". Many organisations finished far ahead of the deadline. United States[edit] In 1998, the United States government responded to the Y2K threat by passing the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, by working with private sector counterparts in order to ensure readiness, and by creating internal continuity of operations plans in the event of problems and set limits to certain potential liabilities of companies with respect to disclosures about their Year 2000 program.[61][62] The effort was coordinated out of the White House by the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, headed by John Koskinen.[63][64] The White House effort was conducted in co-ordination with the then-independent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and an interim Critical Infrastructure Protection Group, then in the Department of Justice, now in Homeland Security. The US Government followed a three-part approach to the problem: (1) outreach and advocacy, (2) monitoring and assessment, and (3) contingency planning and regulation.[65] The logo created by The President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion, for use on Y2K.gov A feature of US Government outreach was Y2K websites including Y2K.GOV, many of which have become inaccessible in the years since 2000. Some of these websites have been archived by the National Archives and Records Administration or the Wayback Machine.[66][67] Each federal agency had its own Y2K task force which worked with its private sector counterparts; the FCC had the FCC Year 2000 Task Force.[65][68] Most industries had contingency plans that relied upon the internet for backup communications. However, as no federal agency had clear authority with regard to the internet at this time (it had passed from the US Department of Defense to the US National Science Foundation and then to the US Department of Commerce), no agency was assessing the readiness of the internet itself. Therefore, on 30 July 1999, the White House held the White House Internet Y2K Roundtable.[69] The U.S. Government also established the Center for Year 2000 Strategic Stability as a joint operation with the Russian Federation. It was a liaison operation designed to mitigate the possibility of false positive readings in each nation's nuclear attack early warning systems.[70] A CD marking its software as Y2K Complaint Juno Internet Service Provider CD labeling Y2K-compliance International cooperation[edit] The International Y2K Cooperation Center (IY2KCC) was established at the behest of national Y2K coordinators from over 120 countries when they met at the First Global Meeting of National Y2K Coordinators at the United Nations in December 1988. IY2KCC established an office in Washington, D.C. in March 1999. Funding was provided by the World Bank, and Bruce W. McConnell was appointed as director. IY2KCC's mission was to "promote increased strategic cooperation and action among governments, peoples, and the private sector to minimize adverse Y2K effects on the global society and economy." Activities of IY2KCC were conducted in six areas: National Readiness: Promoting Y2K programs worldwide Regional Cooperation: Promoting and supporting co-ordination within defined geographic areas Sector Cooperation: Promoting and supporting co-ordination within and across defined economic sectors Continuity and Response Cooperation: Promoting and supporting co-ordination to ensure essential services and provisions for emergency response Information Cooperation: Promoting and supporting international information sharing and publicity Facilitation and Assistance: Organizing global meetings of Y2K coordinators and to identify resources IY2KCC closed down in March 2000.[71] Private sector response[edit] The United States established the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, which limited the liability of businesses who had properly disclosed their Y2K readiness. Insurance companies sold insurance policies covering failure of businesses due to Y2K problems. Attorneys organised and mobilised for Y2K class action lawsuits (which were not pursued).[72] Survivalist-related businesses (gun dealers, surplus and sporting goods) anticipated increased business in the final months of 1999 in an event known as the Y2K scare.[73] The Long Now Foundation, which (in their words) "seeks to promote 'slower/better' thinking and to foster creativity in the framework of the next 10,000 years", has a policy of anticipating the Year 10,000 problem by writing all years with five digits. For example, they list "01996" as their year of founding. While there was no one comprehensive internet Y2K effort, multiple internet trade associations and organisations banded together to form the Internet Year 2000 Campaign.[74] This effort partnered with the White House's Internet Y2K Roundtable. The Y2K issue was a major topic of discussion in the late 1990s and as such showed up in most popular media. A number of "Y2K disaster" books were published such as Deadline Y2K by Mark Joseph. Movies such as Y2K: Year to Kill capitalised on the currency of Y2K, as did numerous TV shows, comic strips, and computer games. Fringe group responses[edit] A variety of fringe groups and individuals such as those within some fundamentalist religious organizations, survivalists, cults, anti-social movements, self-sufficiency enthusiasts, communes and those attracted to conspiracy theories, embraced Y2K as a tool to engender fear and provide a form of evidence for their respective theories. End-of-the-world scenarios and apocalyptic themes were common in their communication. Interest in the survivalist movement peaked in 1999 in its second wave for that decade, triggered by Y2K fears. In the time before extensive efforts were made to rewrite computer programming codes to mitigate the possible impacts, some writers such as Gary North, Ed Yourdon, James Howard Kunstler,[75] and Ed Yardeni anticipated widespread power outages, food and gasoline shortages, and other emergencies. North and others raised the alarm because they thought Y2K code fixes were not being made quickly enough. While a range of authors responded to this wave of concern, two of the most survival-focused texts to emerge were Boston on Y2K (1998) by Kenneth W. Royce, and Mike Oehler's The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K. Y2K was also exploited by some fundamentalist and charismatic Christian leaders throughout the Western world, particularly in North America and Australia.[76] Their promotion of the perceived risks of Y2K was combined with end times thinking and apocalyptic prophecies in an attempt to influence followers.[76] The New York Times reported in late 1999, "The Rev. Jerry Falwell suggested that Y2K would be the confirmation of Christian prophecy — God's instrument to shake this nation, to humble this nation. The Y2K crisis might incite a worldwide revival that would lead to the rapture of the church. Along with many survivalists, Mr. Falwell advised stocking up on food and guns".[77] Adherents in these movements were encouraged to engage in food hoarding, take lessons in self-sufficiency, and the more extreme elements planned for a total collapse of modern society. The Chicago Tribune reported that some large fundamentalist churches, motivated by Y2K, were the sites for flea market-like sales of paraphernalia designed to help people survive a social order crisis ranging from gold coins to wood-burning stoves.[78] Betsy Hart, writing for the Deseret News, reported that a lot of the more extreme evangelicals used Y2K to promote a political agenda in which downfall of the government was a desired outcome in order to usher in Christ's reign. She also noted that, "the cold truth is that preaching chaos is profitable and calm doesn't sell many tapes or books"[79] These types of fears and conspiracies were described dramatically by New Zealand-based Christian prophetic author and preacher Barry Smith in his publication, "I Spy with my Little Eye", where he dedicated a whole chapter to Y2K.[80] Some expected, at times through so-called prophecies, that Y2K would be the beginning of a worldwide Christian revival.[81] It became clear in the aftermath that leaders of these fringe groups had cleverly used fears of apocalyptic outcomes to manipulate followers into dramatic scenes of mass repentance or renewed commitment to their groups, additional giving of funds and more overt commitment to their respective organizations or churches. The Baltimore Sun noted this in their article, "Apocalypse Now — Y2K spurs fears", where they reported the increased call for repentance in the populace in order to avoid God's wrath.[82] Christian leader, Col Stringer, in his commentary has published, "Fear-creating writers sold over 45 million books citing every conceivable catastrophe from civil war, planes dropping from the sky to the end of the civilised world as we know it. Reputable preachers were advocating food storage and a "head for the caves" mentality. No banks failed, no planes crashed, no wars or civil war started. And yet not one of these prophets of doom has ever apologised for their scare-mongering tactics."[81] Some prominent North American Christian ministries and leaders generated huge personal and corporate profits through sales of Y2K preparation kits, generators, survival guides, published prophecies and a wide range of other associated merchandise. Christian journalist, Rob Boston, has documented this[76] in his article "False Prophets, Real Profits — Religious Right Leaders' Wild Predictions of Y2K Disaster Didn't Come True, But They Made Money Anyway". Cost[edit] The total cost of the work done in preparation for Y2K[83] is estimated at[84] over US$300 billion ($445 billion as of January 2018, once inflation is taken into account).[85][86] IDC calculated that the US spent an estimated $134 billion ($199 billion) preparing for Y2K, and another $13 billion ($19 billion) fixing problems in 2000 and 2001. Worldwide, $308 billion ($457 billion) was estimated to have been spent on Y2K remediation.[87] Organisation of the remedial work[edit] The remedial work was driven by customer demand for solutions.[83] Software suppliers, mindful of their potential legal liability,[72] responded with remedial effort. Software subcontractors were required to certify that their software components were free of date-related problems, which drove further work down the supply chain. By 1999, many corporations required their suppliers to certify,[86] often on their own variation of a basic form, that all of their software is Y2K compliant.[citation needed] Some merely accepted remedial updates and then signed. Many businesses or even whole countries who spent little effort themselves nonetheless suffered only minor problems. There are two ways to view the events of 2000 from the perspective of its aftermath: Supporting view[edit] This view holds that the vast majority of problems had been fixed correctly, and the money was well spent. The situation was essentially one of preemptive alarm. Those who hold this view claim that the lack of problems at the date change reflects the completeness of the project, and that many computer applications would not have continued to function into the 21st century without correction or remediation. Expected problems that were not seen by small businesses and small organisations were in fact prevented by Y2K fixes embedded in routine updates to operating system and utility software that were applied several years before 31 December 1999.[citation needed] The extent to which larger industry and government fixes averted issues that would have more significant impacts had they not been fixed, were typically not disclosed or widely reported.[88] It has also been suggested that on 11 September 2001, the New York infrastructure (including subways, phone service, and financial transactions) was able to continue operation because of the redundant networks established in the event of Y2K bug impact[89] and the contingency plans devised by companies.[90] The terrorist attacks and the following prolonged blackout to lower Manhattan had minimal effect on global banking systems.[91] Backup systems were activated at various locations around the region, many of which had been established to deal with a possible complete failure of networks in the financial district on 31 December 1999.[92] Opposing view[edit] The contrary view asserts that there were no, or very few, critical problems to begin with. This view also asserts that there would have been only a few minor mistakes and that a "fix on failure" approach would have been the most efficient and cost-effective way to solve these problems as they occurred. Countries such as South Korea and Italy invested little to nothing in Y2K remediation,[93] yet had the same negligible Y2K problems as countries that spent enormous sums of money.[94] The lack of Y2K-related problems in schools, many of which undertook little or no remediation effort. By 1 September 1999, only 28% of US schools had achieved compliance for mission critical systems, and a government report predicted that "Y2K failures could very well plague the computers used by schools to manage payrolls, student records, online curricula, and building safety systems".[95] The lack of Y2K-related problems in an estimated 1.5 million small businesses that undertook no remediation effort. On 3 January 2000 (the first weekday of the year), the Small Business Administration received an estimated 40 calls from businesses with computer problems, similar to the average. None of the problems were critical.[96] The absence of Y2K-related problems occurring before 1 January 2000, even though the 2000 financial year commenced in 1999 in many jurisdictions, and a wide range of forward-looking calculations involved dates in 2000 and later years. Estimates undertaken in the leadup to 2000 suggested that around 25% of all problems should have occurred before 2000.[97] Critics of large-scale remediation argued during 1999 that the absence of significant reported problems in non-compliant small firms was evidence that there had been, and would be, no serious problems needing to be fixed in any firm, and that the scale of the problem had therefore been severely overestimated.[98] However, this can be countered with the observation that large companies had significant problems requiring action, that Y2K programmers were fully aware of the variable timescale, and that they were working to a series of earlier target dates, rather than a single fixed target of 31 December 1999.[88] Counterpoint[edit] A counterpoint to most of the opposing view points above is that Y2K software updates were often sent to all users regardless of their active participation in the remediation." (wikipedia.org) "Robert Stack (born Charles Langford Modini Stack, January 13, 1919 – May 14, 2003)[1] was an American actor, sportsman, and television host. Known for his deep, commanding voice and presence, he appeared in over 40 feature films. He starred in the landmark ABC-TV television series The Untouchables (1959–1963), for which he won the 1960 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Series, and later hosted/narrated the true crime series Unsolved Mysteries (1987–2002). He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Written on the Wind (1956).... Early life[edit] He was born Charles Langford Modini Stack in Los Angeles, California, but his first name, selected by his mother, was changed to Robert by his father. He spent his early childhood in Europe (Limerick, Ireland). He became fluent in French and Italian at an early age, and did not learn English until returning to Los Angeles when he was seven.[2][3] His parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised by his mother, Mary Elizabeth (née Wood). His father, James Langford Stack, a wealthy advertising agency owner, later remarried his mother, but died when Stack was 10.[4] He had always spoken of his mother with the greatest respect and love. When he collaborated with Mark Evans on his autobiography, Straight Shooting, he included a picture of himself and his mother. He captioned it, "Me and my best girl." His maternal grandfather, the opera singer Charles Wood, studied voice in Italy and performed there under the name "Carlo Modini." On the paternal side of his family, Stack had another opera-singer relative: the American baritone Richard Bonelli (born George Richard Bunn), who was his uncle. Stack took some drama courses at the University of Southern California, where he played on the polo team. Clark Gable was a family friend.[3] By the time he was 20, Stack had achieved minor fame as a sportsman. He was an avid polo player and shooter. His brother and he won the International Outboard Motor Championships, in Venice, Italy; and at age 16, he became a member of the All-American Skeet Team.[2] He set two world records in skeet shooting and became National Champion. In 1971, he was inducted into the National Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame.[5][6] He was a Republican.[7] Career[edit] The High and the Mighty (1954), with John Wayne Stack took drama courses at Bridgewater State University, a mid-size liberal arts school located 25 miles southeast of Boston. His deep voice and good looks attracted producers in Hollywood. Universal[edit] Stack, circa 1940 When Stack visited the lot of Universal Studios at age 20, producer Joe Pasternak offered him an opportunity to enter the business. Recalled Stack, "He said, 'How'd you like to be in pictures? We'll make a test with Helen Parrish, a little love scene.' Helen Parrish was a beautiful girl. 'Gee, that sounds keen,' I told him. I got the part."[8] Stack's first film, which teamed him with Deanna Durbin, was First Love (1939), produced by Pasternak. This film was considered controversial at the time as he was the first actor to give Durbin an on-screen kiss.[9][10] Stack won critical acclaim for his next role, The Mortal Storm (1940) starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart, and directed by Frank Borzage at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He played a young man who joins the Nazi party. Back at Universal, Stack was in Pasternak's A Little Bit of Heaven (1940), starring Gloria Jean who was that studio's back-up for Deanna Durbin. Stack was reunited with Durbin in Pasternak's Nice Girl? (1941). Stack then starred in a Western, Badlands of Dakota (1942), co-starring Richard Dix and Frances Farmer.[11] United Artists borrowed him to play a Polish Air Force pilot in To Be or Not To Be (1942), alongside Jack Benny and Carole Lombard. Stack admitted he was terrified going into this role, but he credited Lombard—who he'd known personally for several years—with giving him many tips on acting and with being his mentor. Lombard was killed in a plane crash shortly before the film was released. Stack played another pilot in Eagle Squadron (1942), a huge hit. He then made a Western, Men of Texas (1942).[12] World War II[edit] During World War II, Stack served as an Aerial Gunnery Officer and gunnery instructor in the United States Navy. Postwar career[edit] Stack resumed his career after the war with roles in such films as Fighter Squadron (1948) at Warners with Edmond O'Brien, playing a pilot; A Date with Judy (1948) at MGM, with Wallace Beery and Elizabeth Taylor. Stack was in two films at Paramount: Miss Tatlock's Millions (1948) and Mr. Music (1950). He had an excellent role in Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), a passion project of Budd Boetticher for John Wayne's company. He later said this was the first time he liked himself on screen.[13] Stack supported Mickey Rooney in My Outlaw Brother (1951) and had the lead in the adventure epic Bwana Devil (1952), considered the first color, American 3-D feature film. It was released by United Artists who also put Stack in a Western, War Paint (1953). He continued making similar low budget action fare: Conquest of Cochise (1953) for Sam Katzman; Sabre Jet (1953), playing another pilot, this time in the Korean War; The Iron Glove (1954), a swashbuckler where Stack played Charles Wogan, for Katzman. Return to "A" movies[edit] In Written on the Wind (1956) Stack was back in "A" pictures when he appeared opposite John Wayne in The High and the Mighty (1954), playing the pilot of an airliner who comes apart under stress after the airliner encounters engine trouble. The film was a hit and Stack received good reviews. In 1954 he signed a seven year contract with Fox.[14] Sam Fuller cast him in the lead of House of Bamboo (1955), shot in Japan for 20th Century Fox. He supported Jennifer Jones in Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955), also at Fox, and starred in Great Day in the Morning (1956) at RKO, directed by Jacques Tourneur. Written on the Wind[edit] Stack was then given an excellent part in Written on the Wind (1956), directed by Douglas Sirk and produced by Albert Zugsmith. Stack played another pilot, the son of a rich man who marries Lauren Bacall who falls for his best friend, played by Rock Hudson. The movie was a massive success and Stack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; Dorothy Malone, who played Stack's sister, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Malone won, but Stack lost, to Anthony Quinn. Stack felt that the primary reason he lost to Quinn was that 20th Century Fox, who had loaned him to Universal-International, organized block voting against him to prevent one of their contract players from winning an Academy Award while working at another studio.[15] Stack was reunited with Hudson, Malone, Zugsmith and Sirk on The Tarnished Angels (1957), once more playing a pilot. At Fox he was in The Gift of Love (1958) with Bacall. Stack then was given a real star role, playing the title part in John Farrow's biopic, John Paul Jones (1959). Despite a large budget and an appearance by Bette Davis it was not a success. The Untouchables[edit] Robert and Rosemarie Stack at home in 1961 Stack portrayed the crimefighting Eliot Ness in the award-winning ABC television hit drama series, The Untouchables (1959–1963). The show portrayed the ongoing battle between gangsters and a special squad of federal agents in prohibition-era Chicago. "No one thought it was going to be a series," Stack once said, "When you tell the same story every week, it seemed like a vendetta between Ness and the Italians."[3] The show won Stack the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series at the 12th Primetime Emmy Awards in 1960.[16] During the series' run, Stack starred in a disaster movie, The Last Voyage (1960), appearing opposite Malone. At Fox he was in The Caretakers (1963) with Joan Crawford and he appeared in a special on hunting, The American Sportsman.[17] He had 25% of The Untouchables and The Caretaker.[13] After The Untouchables Stack worked in Europe for Is Paris Burning? (1966), The Peking Medallion (1967), Action Man (1967) and later for Story of a Woman (1970). He did Laura (1967) on film.[18] The Name of the Game[edit] With Gene Barry and Tony Franciosa in The Name of the Game (1968-1971) Stack starred in a new drama series, rotating the lead with Tony Franciosa and Gene Barry in the lavish The Name of the Game (1968–1971). He played a former federal agent turned true-crime journalist, evoking memories of his role as Ness. In 1971, he sued CBS for $25 million for appearing in a documentary The Selling of the Pentagon.[19] 1970s career[edit] Stack played a pilot in the TV movie Murder on Flight 502 (1975) and was the lead in the series Most Wanted (1976), playing a tough, incorruptible police captain commanding an elite squad of special investigators, also evoking the Ness role. He later did a similar part in the series Strike Force (1981).[20] He made a film in France, Second Wind (1978). Comedy actor and later career[edit] Stack parodied his own persona in the comedy 1941 (1979). His performance was well received and Stack became a comic actor, appearing in Airplane! (1980), Big Trouble (1986), Plain Clothes (1988), Caddyshack II (1988), Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), and BASEketball (1998). He also provided the voice for the character Ultra Magnus in The Transformers: The Movie (1986). In a more serious vein he appeared in the action movie Uncommon Valor (1983), the television miniseries George Washington (1984) and Hollywood Wives (1985), and appeared in several episodes of the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest in 1986. Stack's series Strike Force was scheduled opposite Falcon Crest, where it quickly folded.[citation needed] He began hosting Unsolved Mysteries in 1987. He thought very highly of the interactive nature of the show, saying that it created a "symbiotic" relationship between viewer and program, and that the hotline was a great crime-solving tool. Unsolved Mysteries aired from 1987 to 2002, first as specials in 1987 (Stack did not host all the specials, which were previously hosted by Raymond Burr and Karl Malden), then as a regular series on NBC (1988–1997), then on CBS (1997–1999) and finally on Lifetime (2001–2002). Stack served as the show's host during its entire original series run.[21] In 1991, Stack voiced the main police officer Lt. Littleboy (who is also the main protagonist and narrator) in The Real Story of Baa Baa Black Sheep. For a brief period between 2001 and 2002, Stack voiced Stoat Muldoon, a character featured on the computer-animated television series, Butt-Ugly Martians on Nickelodeon. In 1996, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.[22] Death[edit] At the 60th Academy Awards in 1988 Stack was married to actress Rosemarie Bowe from 1956 until his death. He underwent radiation therapy for prostate cancer in October 2002 and died of heart failure on May 14, 2003.[3] He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California." (wikipedia.org) "Self-preservation is a behavior or set of behaviors that ensures the survival of an organism.[1] It is universal among all living organisms.[citation needed] Pain and fear are integral parts of this mechanism. Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future.[2] Most pain resolves promptly once the painful stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but sometimes pain persists despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body; and sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease.[3] Fear causes the organism to seek safety and may cause a release of adrenaline,[4][5] which has the effect of increased strength and heightened senses such as hearing, smell, and sight. Self-preservation may also be interpreted figuratively, in regard to the coping mechanisms one needs to prevent emotional trauma from distorting the mind (see Defence mechanisms). Even the most simple of living organisms (for example, the single-celled bacteria) are typically under intense selective pressure to evolve a response that would help avoid a damaging environment, if such an environment exists. Organisms also evolve while adapting - even thriving - in a benign environment (for example, a marine sponge modifies its structure in response to current changes, in order to better absorb and process nutrients). Self-preservation is therefore an almost universal hallmark of life. However, when introduced to a novel threat, many species will have a self-preservation response either too specialised, or not specialised enough, to cope with that particular threat.[citation needed] An example is the dodo, which evolved in the absence of natural predators and hence lacked an appropriate, general self-preservation response to heavy predation by humans and rats, showing no fear of them. Self preservation is essentially the process of an organism preventing itself from being harmed or killed and is considered a basic instinct in most organisms.[6] Most call it a "survival instinct". Self-preservation is thought to be tied to an organism's reproductive fitness and can be more or less present according to perceived reproduction potential.[7] If perceived reproductive potential is low enough, self-destructive behavior (i.e., the opposite) is not uncommon in social species.[8] Self-preservation is also thought by some to be the basis of rational and logical thought and behavior.... Overview[edit] An organism's fitness is measured by its ability to pass on its genes. The most straightforward way to accomplish this is to survive to a reproductive age, mate, and then have offspring. These offspring will hold at least a portion of their parent's genes, up to all of the parent's genes in asexual organisms. But in order for this to happen, an organism must first survive long enough to reproduce, and this would mainly consist of adopting selfish behaviors that would allow organisms to maximize their own chances for survival. Self-destructive behavior[edit] An interesting phenomenon sometimes occurs in social animals. Animals in a social group (of kin) often work cooperatively in order to survive, but when one member perceives itself as a burden for an extended period of time, it may commit self-destructive behavior.[7] This allows its relatives to have a better chance at survival, and if enough close relatives survive, then its genes get indirectly passed on.[7] This behavior works in the exact opposite direction of the survival instinct and could be considered a highly altruistic behavior evolved from a cooperative group. Self-destructive behavior is not the same as risk-taking behavior (see below in Social implications), although risk taking behavior could turn into destructive behavior. Social implications[edit] The desire for self-preservation has led to countless laws and regulations surrounding a culture of safety in society.[10] Seat belt laws, speed limits, texting regulations, and the "stranger danger" campaign should all be familiar examples of societal guides and regulations to enhance survival, and these laws are heavily influenced by the pursuit of self-preservation. Economic impacts[edit] Self-preservation urges animals to collect energy and resources required to prolong life as well as resources that increase chances of survival. Basic needs are available to most humans (roughly 7 out of 8 people),[11] and usually rather cheaply. The instinct that drives us to gather resources now drives us to over-consumption or to patterns of collection and possession that essentially make hoarding resources the priority.[12] Cellular self preservation[edit] Self-preservation is not just limited to individual organisms, this can be scaled up or down to other levels of life. Narula and Young[13] indicate that cardiac myocytes have an acute sense of self-preservation. They are able to duck, dart, and dodge foreign substances that may harm the cell. In addition, when a myocardiac arrest - a heart attack - occurs, it is actually the cardiac myocytes entering a state of hibernation in an attempt to wait out a lack of resources.[13] While this is ultimately deadly to the organism, it prolongs the cell's survival as long as possible for hopeful resuscitation.[13] Group self preservation[edit] When scaled in the opposite direction, Hughes-Jones[14] makes the argument that "social groups that fight each other are self‐sustaining, self‐replicating wholes containing interdependent parts" indicating that the group as a whole can have self-preservation with the individuals acting as the cells. He makes an analogy between the survival practices such as hygiene and the ritual nature of within small human groups or the nations that engage in religious warfare with the complex survival mechanisms of multi-cellular organisms that evolved from the cooperative association of single cell organisms in order to better protect themselves." (wikipedia.org) "Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups (called survivalists or preppers) who actively prepare for emergencies, including possible disruptions in social or political order, on scales from local to international. Survivalism also encompasses preparation for personal emergencies, such as job loss or being stranded in the wild or under adverse weather conditions. The emphasis is on self-reliance, stockpiling supplies, and gaining survival knowledge and skills. Survivalists often acquire emergency medical and self-defense training, stockpile food and water, prepare to become self-sufficient, and build structures such as survival retreats or underground shelters that may help them survive a catastrophe. Use of the term survivalist dates from the early 1960s.... History[edit] 1930s to 1950s[edit] 1950 booklet Survival Under Atomic Attack, a civil defense publication The origins of the modern survivalist movement in the United Kingdom and the United States include government policies, threats of nuclear warfare, religious beliefs, and writers who warned of social or economic collapse in both non-fiction and apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction.[citation needed] The Cold War era civil defense programs promoted public atomic bomb shelters, personal fallout shelters, and training for children, such as the Duck and Cover films. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) long directed its members to store a year's worth of food for themselves and their families in preparation for such possibilities;[2] but the current teaching advises only a three-month supply.[2] The Great Depression that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929 is cited by survivalists as an example of the need to be prepared.[3][4] 1960s[edit] Basement family fallout shelter, circa 1957 The increased inflation rate in the 1960s, the US monetary devaluation, the continued concern over a possible nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and perceived increasing vulnerability of urban centers to supply shortages and other systems failures caused a number of primarily conservative and libertarian thinkers to promote individual preparations. Harry Browne began offering seminars on how to survive a monetary collapse in 1967, with Don Stephens (an architect) providing input on how to build and equip a remote survival retreat. He gave a copy of his original Retreater's Bibliography to each seminar participant.[citation needed] Articles on the subject appeared in small-distribution libertarian publications such as The Innovator and Atlantis Quarterly. It was during this period that Robert D. Kephart began publishing Inflation Survival Letter[5] (later renamed Personal Finance). For several years the newsletter included a continuing section on personal preparedness written by Stephens. It promoted expensive seminars around the US on similar cautionary topics. Stephens participated, along with James McKeever and other defensive investing, "hard money" advocates. 1970s[edit] Oregon gasoline dealers displayed signs explaining the flag policy in the winter of 1973–74 during the oil crisis In the next decade Howard Ruff warned about socio-economic collapse in his 1974 book Famine and Survival in America. Ruff's book was published during a period of rampant inflation in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. Most of the elements of survivalism can be found there, including advice on food storage. The book championed the claim that precious metals, such as gold and silver, have an intrinsic worth that makes them more usable in the event of a socioeconomic collapse than fiat currency. Ruff later published milder variations of the same themes, such as How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years, a best-seller in 1979. Firearms instructor and survivalist Colonel Jeff Cooper wrote on hardening retreats against small arms fire. In an article titled "Notes on Tactical Residential Architecture" in Issue #30 of P.S. Letter (April 1982), Cooper suggested using the "Vauban Principle", whereby projecting bastion corners would prevent miscreants from being able to approach a retreat's exterior walls in any blind spots. Corners with this simplified implementation of a Vauban Star are now called "Cooper Corners" by James Wesley Rawles, in honor of Jeff Cooper.[6] Depending on the size of the group needing shelter, design elements of traditional European castle architecture, as well as Chinese Fujian Tulou and Mexican walled courtyard houses, have been suggested for survival retreats. A selection of silver American coins. From the mid-1960s to the 1970s and onward, people began hoarding gold and silver coins to build wealth as a means to mitigate the results of a hyperinflation effect on the economy. In both his book Rawles on Retreats and Relocation and in his survivalist novel, Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse, Rawles describes in great detail retreat groups "upgrading" brick or other masonry houses with steel reinforced window shutters and doors, excavating anti-vehicular ditches, installing warded gate locks, constructing concertina wire obstacles and fougasses, and setting up listening post/observation posts (LP/OPs.) Rawles is a proponent of including a mantrap foyer at survival retreats, an architectural element that he calls a "crushroom".[7] Bruce D. Clayton and Joel Skousen have both written extensively on integrating fallout shelters into retreat homes, but they put less emphasis on ballistic protection and exterior perimeter security than Cooper and Rawles. Other newsletters and books followed in the wake of Ruff's first publication. In 1975, Kurt Saxon began publishing a monthly tabloid-size newsletter called The Survivor, which combined Saxon's editorials with reprints of 19th century and early 20th century writings on various pioneer skills and old technologies. Kurt Saxon used the term survivalist to describe the movement, and he claims to have coined the term.[8] In the previous decade, preparedness consultant, survival bookseller, and California-based author Don Stephens popularized the term retreater to describe those in the movement, referring to preparations to leave cities for remote havens or survival retreats should society break down. In 1976, before moving to the Inland Northwest, he and his wife authored and published The Survivor's Primer & Up-dated Retreater's Bibliography. For a time in the 1970s, the terms survivalist and retreater were used interchangeably. While the term retreater eventually fell into disuse, many who subscribed to it saw retreating as the more rational approach to conflict-avoidance and remote "invisibility". Survivalism, on the other hand, tended to take on a more media-sensationalized, combative, "shoot-it-out-with-the-looters" image.[8] One newsletter deemed by some to be one of the most important on survivalism and survivalist retreats in the 1970s was the Personal Survival ("P.S.") Letter (circa 1977–1982). Published by Mel Tappan, who also authored the books Survival Guns and Tappan on Survival. The newsletter included columns from Tappan himself as well as notable survivalists such as Jeff Cooper, Al J Venter, Bruce D. Clayton, Nancy Mack Tappan, J.B. Wood (author of several gunsmithing books), Karl Hess, Janet Groene (travel author), Dean Ing, Reginald Bretnor, and C.G. Cobb (author of Bad Times Primer). The majority of the newsletter revolved around selecting, constructing, and logistically equipping survival retreats.[9] Following Tappan's death in 1980, Karl Hess took over publishing the newsletter, eventually renaming it Survival Tomorrow. In 1980, John Pugsley published the book The Alpha Strategy. It was on The New York Times Best Seller list for nine weeks in 1981.[10][11] After 28 years in circulation, The Alpha Strategy remains popular with survivalists, and is considered a standard reference on stocking food and household supplies as a hedge against inflation and future shortages.[12][13] In addition to hardcopy newsletters, in the 1970s survivalists established their first online presence with BBS[14][15] and Usenet forums dedicated to survivalism and survival retreats. 1980s[edit] Further interest in the survivalist movement peaked in the early 1980s, with Howard Ruff's book How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years and the publication in 1980 of Life After Doomsday by Bruce D. Clayton. Clayton's book, coinciding with a renewed arms race between the United States and Soviet Union, marked a shift in emphasis in preparations made by survivalists away from economic collapse, famine, and energy shortages—which were concerns in the 1970s—to nuclear war. In the early 1980s, science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle was an editor and columnist for Survive, a survivalist magazine, and was influential in the survivalist movement.[16] Ragnar Benson's 1982 book Live Off The Land In The City And Country suggested rural survival retreats as both a preparedness measure and conscious lifestyle change. 1990s[edit] Logo created by The President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion for use on Y2K.gov Interest in the movement picked up during the Clinton administration due in part to the debate surrounding the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and the ban's subsequent passage in 1994. The interest peaked again in 1999 triggered by fears of the Y2K computer bug. Before extensive efforts were made to rewrite computer programming code to mitigate the effects, some writers such as Gary North, Ed Yourdon, James Howard Kunstler,[17] and investments' advisor Ed Yardeni anticipated widespread power outages, food and gasoline shortages, and other emergencies. North and others raised the alarm because they thought Y2K code fixes were not being made quickly enough. While a range of authors responded to this wave of concern, two of the most survival-focused texts to emerge were Boston on Y2K (1998) by Kenneth W. Royce, and Mike Oehler's The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K. Oehler is an underground living advocate, who also authored The $50 and Up Underground House Book,[18] which has long been popular in survivalist circles. 2000s[edit] A town near the coast of Sumatra lies in ruin after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Another wave of survivalism began after the September 11, 2001, attacks and subsequent bombings in Bali, Madrid, and London. This resurgence of interest in survivalism appears to be as strong as the 1970s era focus on the topic. The fear of war, avian influenza, energy shortages, environmental disasters, and global climate change, coupled with economic uncertainty and the apparent vulnerability of humanity after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, have increased interest in survivalism topics.[19] Many books were published in the wake of the Great Recession from 2008 and later offering survival advice for various potential disasters, ranging from an energy shortage and crash to nuclear or biological terrorism. In addition to the 1970s-era books, blogs and Internet forums are popular ways of disseminating survivalism information. Online survival websites and blogs discuss survival vehicles, survival retreats, emerging threats, and list survivalist groups. Economic troubles emerging from the credit collapse triggered by the 2007 US subprime mortgage lending crisis and global grain shortages[20][21][22][19] have prompted a wider cross-section of the populace to prepare.[22][23] The advent of H1N1 Swine Flu in 2009 piqued interest in survivalism, significantly boosting sales of preparedness books and making survivalism more mainstream.[24] These developments led Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute, to identify a trend that he calls "neo-survivalism". He explained this phenomenon in a radio interview with Jim Puplava on December 18, 2009:[25] When you go back to the last depressing days when we were in a survival mode, the last one the Y2K of course, before the 1970s, what had happened was you only saw this one element of survivalist, you know, the caricature, the guy with the AK-47 heading to the hills with enough ammunition and pork and beans to ride out the storm. This is a very different one from that: you're seeing average people taking smart moves and moving in intelligent directions to prepare for the worst. (...) So survivalism in every way possible. Growing your own, self-sustaining, doing as much as you can to make it as best as you can on your own and it can happen in urban area, sub-urban area or the ex-urbans. And it also means becoming more and more tightly committed to your neighbors, your neighborhood, working together and understanding that we're all in this together and that when we help each other out that's going to be the best way forward. This last aspect is highlighted in The Trends Research Journal: "Communal spirit intelligently deployed is the core value of Neo-Survivalism".[26] 2010 to present[edit] A number of popular movies and television shows,[definition needed] such as the National Geographic Channel's Doomsday Preppers, have also emerged recently[when?] to capitalize on what Los Angeles Times' entertainment contributor Mary McNamara dubbed "today's zeitgeist of fear of a world-changing event."[27] After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the "prepper" community worried they would face public scrutiny after it was revealed the mass murderer's mother was a survivalist.... Survivalism is approached by its adherents in different ways, depending on their circumstances, mindsets, and particular concerns for the future.[29] The following are characterizations, although most (if not all) survivalists fit into more than one category: Safety-preparedness-oriented While survivalists accept the long-term viability of Western civilization, they learn principles and techniques needed for surviving life-threatening situations that can occur at any time and place. They prepare for such calamities that could result in physical harm or requiring immediate attention or defense from threats. These disasters could be biotic or abiotic. Survivalists combat disasters by attempting to prevent and mitigate damage caused by these factors.[30][31] Wilderness survival emphasis Astronaut Susan Helms gathers firewood during winter survival training. This group stresses being able to stay alive for indefinite periods in life-threatening wilderness scenarios, including plane crashes, shipwrecks, and being lost in the woods. Concerns are: thirst, hunger, climate, terrain, health, stress, and fear.[30] The rule of 3 is often emphasized as common practice for wilderness survival. The rule states that a human can survive: 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. [32] Self-defense-driven This group focuses on surviving brief encounters of violent activity, including personal protection and its legal ramifications, danger awareness, John Boyd's cycle (also known as the OODA loop—observe, orient, decide and act), martial arts, self-defense tactics and tools (both lethal and non-lethal). These survivalist tactics are often firearm-oriented, in order to ensure a method of defense against attackers or home invasion. Natural disaster, brief This group consists of people who live in tornado, hurricane, flood, wildfire, earthquake or heavy snowfall-prone areas and want to be prepared for possible emergencies.[33] They invest in material for fortifying structures and tools for rebuilding and constructing temporary shelters. While assuming the long-term continuity of society, some may have invested in a custom-built shelter, food, water, medicine, and enough supplies to get by until contact with the rest of the world resumes following a natural emergency.[30] Natural disaster, prolonged This group is concerned with weather cycles of 2–10 years, which have happened historically and can cause crop failures.[21] They might stock several tons of food per family member and have a heavy-duty greenhouse with canned non-hybrid seeds.[34] Natural disaster, indefinite/multi-generational Artistic depiction of a cataclysmic meteor impact This group considers an end to society as it exists today under possible scenarios including global warming, global cooling, environmental degradation,[22] warming or cooling of gulf stream waters, or a period of severely cold winters caused by a supervolcano, an asteroid strike, or large-scale nuclear proliferation. Bio-chem scenario This group is concerned with the spread of fatal diseases, biological agents, and nerve gases, including swine flu, E. coli 0157, botulism, dengue fever, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, SARS, rabies, Hantavirus, anthrax, plague, cholera, HIV, ebola, Marburg virus, Lassa virus, sarin, and VX.[35] In response, they might own NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) full-face respirators, polyethylene coveralls, PVC boots, nitrile gloves, plastic sheeting and duct tape. Monetary disaster investors Crowd at New York City American Union Bank during a 1931 bank run early in the Great Depression Monetary disaster investors believe the Federal Reserve system is fundamentally flawed. Newsletters suggest hard assets of gold and silver bullion, coins, and other precious-metal-oriented investments such as mining shares. Survivalists prepare for paper money to become worthless through hyperinflation. As of late 2009 this is a popular scenario.[36][37][38][39] Many will stockpile bullion in preparation for a market crash that would destroy the value of global currencies. Biblical eschatologist These individuals study End Times prophecy and believe that one of various scenarios might occur in their lifetime. While some Christians (and even people of other religions) believe that the Rapture will follow a period of Tribulation, others believe that the Rapture is imminent and will precede the Tribulation ("Pre-Trib Rapture"). There is a wide range of beliefs and attitudes in this group. They run the gamut from pacifist to armed camp, and from having no food stockpiles (leaving their sustenance up to God's providence) to storing decades' worth of food. Peak-oil doomers This group believes that peak oil is a near term threat to Western civilization,[40] and take appropriate measures,[41] usually involving relocation to an agriculturally self-sufficient survival retreat.[42] Rawlesian Followers of James Wesley Rawles[43] often prepare for multiple scenarios with fortified and well-equipped rural survival retreats.[44] This group anticipates a near-term crisis and seek to be well-armed as well as ready to dispense charity in the event of a disaster.[41] Most take a "deep larder" approach and store food to last years, and a central tenet is geographic seclusion in the northern US intermountain region.[45] They emphasize practical self-sufficiency and homesteading skills.[45] Legal-continuity-oriented This group has a primary concern with maintaining some form of legal system and social cohesion after a breakdown in the technical infrastructure of society. They are interested in works like The Postman by David Brin,[46] Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch,[47] or Marcus B. Hatfield's The American Common Law: The Customary Law of the American Nation.[48] Common preparations[edit] A Red Cross "ready to go" preparedness kit. Common preparations include the creation of a clandestine or defensible retreat, haven, or bug out location (BOL) in addition to the stockpiling of non-perishable food, water (i.e. using water canisters), water-purification equipment, clothing, seed, firewood, defensive or hunting weapons, ammunition, agricultural equipment, and medical supplies. Some survivalists do not make such extensive preparations, and simply incorporate a "Be Prepared" outlook into their everyday life. A bag of gear, often referred to as a "bug out bag" (BOB) or "get out of dodge" (G.O.O.D.) kit,[49] can be created which contains basic necessities and useful items. It can be of any size, weighing as much as the user is able to carry. Changing concerns and preparations[edit] Survivalists' concerns and preparations have changed over the years. During the 1970s, fears were economic collapse, hyperinflation, and famine. Preparations included food storage and survival retreats in the country which could be farmed. Some survivalists stockpiled precious metals and barterable goods (such as common-caliber ammunition) because they assumed that paper currency would become worthless. During the early 1980s, nuclear war became a common fear, and some survivalists constructed fallout shelters. In 1999, many people purchased electric generators, water purifiers, and several months' or years' worth of food in anticipation of widespread power outages because of the Y2K computer-bug. Instead of moving or making such preparations at home, many people also make plans to remain in their current locations until an actual breakdown occurs, when they will—in survivalist parlance—"bug out" or "get out of Dodge" to a safer location. Religious beliefs[edit] The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, depicted in a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (ca. 1497–98), ride forth as a group, with an angel heralding them, to bring Death, Famine, War and Plague unto man.[50] Other survivalists have more specialized concerns, often related to an adherence to apocalyptic religious beliefs. Some evangelical Christians hold to an interpretation of Bible prophecy known as the post-tribulation rapture, in which the world will have to go through a seven-year period of war and global dictatorship known as the "Great Tribulation". Jim McKeever helped popularize survival preparations among this branch of evangelical Christians with his 1978 book Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation, and How To Prepare For It. Similarly, some Catholics are preppers, based on Marian apparitions which speak of a great chastisement of humanity by God, particularly those associated with Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Akita (which states "fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity"). Mainstream emergency preparations[edit] People who are not part of survivalist groups or apolitically oriented religious groups also make preparations for emergencies. This can include (depending on the location) preparing for earthquakes, floods, power outages, blizzards, avalanches, wildfires, terrorist attacks, nuclear power plant accidents, hazardous material spills, tornadoes, and hurricanes. These preparations can be as simple as following Red Cross and U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recommendations by keeping a first aid kit, shovel, and extra clothes in the car, or by maintaining a small kit of emergency supplies, containing emergency food, water, a space blanket, and other essentials. Mainstream economist and financial adviser Barton Biggs is a proponent of preparedness. In his 2008 book Wealth, War and Wisdom, Biggs has a gloomy outlook for the economic future, and suggests that investors take survivalist measures. In the book, Biggs recommends that his readers should "assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure." He goes so far as to recommend setting up survival retreats:[51] "Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food," Mr. Biggs writes. "It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe, there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down."[22] For global catastrophic risks the costs of food storage become impractical for most of the population [52] and for some such catastrophes conventional agriculture would not function due to the loss of a large fraction of sunlight (e.g. during nuclear winter or a supervolcano). In such situations, alternative food is necessary, which is converting natural gas and wood fiber to human edible food.... Media portrayal[edit] Despite a lull following the end of the Cold War, survivalism has gained greater attention in recent years, resulting in increased popularity of the survivalist lifestyle, as well as increased scrutiny. A National Geographic show interviewing survivalists, Doomsday Preppers, was a "ratings bonanza"[79] and "the network's most-watched series",[80] yet Neil Genzlinger in The New York Times declared it an "absurd excess on display and at what an easy target the prepper worldview is for ridicule," noting, "how offensively anti-life these shows are, full of contempt for humankind."[81] Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute, noted how many modern survivalists deviate from the classic archetype, terming this new style "neo-survivalism"; "you know, the caricature, the guy with the AK-47 heading to the hills with enough ammunition and pork and beans to ride out the storm. This [neo-survivalist] is a very different one from that"." (wikipedia.org) "Survival skills are techniques that a person may use in order to sustain life in any type of natural environment or built environment. These techniques are meant to provide basic necessities for human life which include water, food, and shelter. The skills also support proper knowledge and interactions with animals and plants to promote the sustaining of life over a period of time. Survival skills are often associated with the need to survive in a disaster situation.[1] Survival skills are often basic ideas and abilities that ancients invented and used themselves for thousands of years.[2] Outdoor activities such as hiking, backpacking, horseback riding, fishing, and hunting all require basic wilderness survival skills, especially in handling emergency situations. Bushcraft and primitive living are most often self-implemented, but require many of the same skills.... Important survival items[edit] Civilian pilots attending a Survival course at RAF Kinloss learn how to construct shelter from the elements, using materials available in the woodland on the north-east edge of the aerodrome. Main article: Survival kit Often survival practitioners will carry with them a "survival kit". This consists of various items that seem necessary or useful for potential survival situations, depending on anticipated challenges and location. Supplies in a survival kit vary greatly by anticipated needs. For wilderness survival, they often contain items like a knife, water container, fire starting apparatus, first aid equipment, food obtaining devices (snare wire, fish hooks, firearms, or other,) a light, navigational aids, and signalling or communications devices. Often these items will have multiple possible uses as space and weight are often at a premium. Survival kits may be purchased from various retailers or individual components may be bought and assembled into a kit. Common questionable survival skills[edit] Some survival books promote the "Universal Edibility Test".[18] Allegedly, it is possible to distinguish edible foods from toxic ones by a series of progressive exposures to skin and mouth prior to ingestion, with waiting periods and checks for symptoms. However, many experts including Ray Mears and John Kallas[19] reject this method, stating that even a small amount of some "potential foods" can cause physical discomfort, illness, or death. Many mainstream survival experts have recommended the act of drinking urine in times of dehydration and malnutrition.[citation needed] However, the United States Air Force Survival Manual (AF 64-4) instructs that this technique is a myth and should never be applied.[citation needed] Several reasons for not drinking urine include the high salt content of urine, potential contaminants, and sometimes bacteria growth, despite urine's being generally "sterile". Many classic cowboy movies, classic survival books and even some school textbooks suggest that sucking the venom out of a snake bite by mouth is an appropriate treatment and/or also for the bitten person to drink their urine after the poisonous animal bite or poisonous insect bite as a mean for the body to provide natural anti-venom. However, venom can not be sucked out and it may be dangerous for a rescuer to attempt to do so. Modern snakebite treatment involves pressure bandages and prompt medical treatment." (wikipedia.org) "Workbooks in the American education system are paperback textbooks issued to students.[1][2][3] Workbooks are usually filled with practice problems, where the answers can be written directly in the book.... Advantages[edit] Workbooks are often used in schools for younger students, either in middle school or elementary school. They are favored because students can work directly in their books, eliminating the need for looseleaf and copying questions from a textbook. In industry, they may be customized interactive manuals which are used to help provide structure to an otherwise complex problem. Workbook usually covers important concepts and tasks related to syllabus. Workbooks are used for solving extra problems and concepts which students have already studied from textbook. Workbooks also hold an advantage because they are usually smaller and lighter than textbooks, which equates to less trouble when the student brings the book home to complete their homework. The term workbook is also used to describe other compilations of questions that require the reader to complete scratch-work when dealing with higher-level mathematics. It can also be used as a training tool for certain job positions. More recently, electronic workbooks have permitted interactive and customized learning. Such workbooks may be used on computers, laptops, PDAs, and may be web-based." (wikipedia.org) "VHS (short for Video Home System)[1][2][3] is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan (JVC) in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan on September 9, 1976, and in the United States on August 23, 1977.[citation needed] From the 1950s, magnetic tape video recording became a major contributor to the television industry, via the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs). At that time, the expensive devices were used only in professional environments such as television studios and medical imaging (fluoroscopy). In the 1970s, videotape entered home use, creating the home video industry and changing the economics of the television and movie businesses. The television industry viewed videocassette recorders (VCRs) as having the power to disrupt their business, while television users viewed the VCR as a means to take control of their viewing experience.[4] In the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a format war in the home video industry. Two of the standards, VHS and Betamax, received the most media exposure. VHS eventually won the war, dominating 60 percent of the North American market by 1980[5][6] and emerging as the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period.[7] Optical disc formats later began to offer better quality than analog consumer video tape such as VHS and S-VHS. The earliest of these formats, LaserDisc, was not widely adopted across Europe, but was hugely popular in Japan and a minor success in the United States. After the introduction of the DVD format in 1996, however, the market share for VHS began to decline.[8] In 2003 DVD rentals surpassed those of VHS in the United States and by 2008, DVD had replaced VHS as the preferred low-end method of distribution.[9][10] The last known company in the world to manufacture VHS equipment, Funai of Japan, ceased production in July 2016.... History[edit] Prior to VHS[edit] Further information: Video tape recorder In 1956, following several attempts by other companies, the first commercially successful VTR, the Ampex VRX-1000, was introduced by Ampex Corporation.[12] At a price of US$50,000 in 1956 (equivalent to $470,196 in 2019), and US$300 (equivalent to $2,821 in 2019) for a 90-minute reel of tape, it was intended only for the professional market.[citation needed] Kenjiro Takayanagi, a television broadcasting pioneer then working for JVC as its vice president, saw the need for his company to produce VTRs for the Japan market, and at a more affordable price. In 1959, JVC developed a two-head video tape recorder, and by 1960 a color version for professional broadcasting.[13] In 1964, JVC released the DV220, which would be the company's standard VTR until the mid-1970s.[citation needed] In 1969, JVC collaborated with Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric (Matsushita was then parent company of Panasonic and is now known by that name, also majority stockholder of JVC until 2008) in building a video recording standard for the Japanese consumer.[14] The effort produced the U-matic format in 1971, which was the first format to become a unified standard.[citation needed] U-matic was successful in business and some broadcast applications (such as electronic news-gathering), but due to cost and limited recording time very few of the machines were sold for home use.[citation needed] Soon after, Sony and Matsushita broke away from the collaboration effort, in order to work on video recording formats of their own. Sony started working on Betamax, while Matsushita started working on VX. JVC released the CR-6060 in 1975, based on the U-matic format. Sony and Matsushita also produced U-matic systems of their own.[citation needed] VHS development[edit] In 1971, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano put together a team to develop a consumer-based VTR.[15] By the end of 1971, they created an internal diagram titled "VHS Development Matrix", which established twelve objectives for JVC's new VTR:[16] The system must be compatible with any ordinary television set. Picture quality must be similar to a normal air broadcast. The tape must have at least a two-hour recording capacity. Tapes must be interchangeable between machines. The overall system should be versatile, meaning it can be scaled and expanded, such as connecting a video camera, or dub between two recorders. Recorders should be affordable, easy to operate and have low maintenance costs. Recorders must be capable of being produced in high volume, their parts must be interchangeable, and they must be easy to service. In early 1972, the commercial video recording industry in Japan took a financial hit. JVC cut its budgets and restructured its video division, shelving the VHS project. However, despite the lack of funding, Takano and Shiraishi continued to work on the project in secret. By 1973, the two engineers had produced a functional prototype.[16] Competition with Betamax[edit] In 1974, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), desiring to avoid consumer confusion, attempted to force the Japanese video industry to standardize on just one home video recording format.[17] Later, Sony had a functional prototype of the Betamax format, and was very close to releasing a finished product. With this prototype, Sony persuaded the MITI to adopt Betamax as the standard, and allow it to license the technology to other companies.[16] JVC believed that an open standard, with the format shared among competitors without licensing the technology, was better for the consumer. To prevent the MITI from adopting Betamax, JVC worked to convince other companies, in particular Matsushita (Japan's largest electronics manufacturer at the time, marketing its products under the National brand in most territories and the Panasonic brand in North America, and JVC's majority stockholder), to accept VHS, and thereby work against Sony and the MITI.[18] Matsushita agreed, primarily out of concern that Sony might become the leader in the field if its proprietary Betamax format was the only one allowed to be manufactured. Matsushita also regarded Betamax's one-hour recording time limit as a disadvantage.[18] Matsushita's backing of JVC persuaded Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sharp[19] to back the VHS standard as well.[16] Sony's release of its Betamax unit to the Japanese market in 1975 placed further pressure on the MITI to side with the company. However, the collaboration of JVC and its partners was much stronger, and eventually led the MITI to drop its push for an industry standard. JVC released the first VHS machines in Japan in late 1976, and in the United States in mid 1977.[20] Sony's Betamax competed with VHS throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s (see Videotape format war). Betamax's major advantages were its smaller cassette size, theoretical higher video quality, and earlier availability, but its shorter recording time proved to be a major shortcoming.[6] Originally, Beta I machines using the NTSC television standard were able to record one hour of programming at their standard tape speed of 1.5 inches per second (ips).[21] The first VHS machines could record for two hours, due to both a slightly slower tape speed (1.31 ips)[21] and significantly longer tape. Betamax's smaller-sized cassette limited the size of the reel of tape, and could not compete with VHS's two-hour capability by extending the tape length.[21] Instead, Sony had to slow the tape down to 0.787 ips (Beta II) in order to achieve two hours of recording in the same cassette size.[21] This reduced Betamax's once-superior video quality to worse than VHS when comparing two-hour recording.[citation needed] Sony eventually released an extended Beta cassette (Beta III) which allowed NTSC Betamax to break the two-hour limit, but by then VHS had already won the format battle.[21] Additionally, VHS had a "far less complex tape transport mechanism" than Betamax, and VHS machines were faster at rewinding and fast-forwarding than their Sony counterparts.[22] Initial releases of VHS-based devices[edit] JVC HR-3300U VIDSTAR – the United States version of the JVC HR-3300. It is virtually identical to the Japan version. Japan's version showed the "Victor" name, and didn't use the "VIDSTAR" name. The first VCR to use VHS was the Victor HR-3300, and was introduced by the president of JVC in Japan on September 9, 1976.[23][24] JVC started selling the HR-3300 in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan on October 31, 1976.[23] Region-specific versions of the JVC HR-3300 were also distributed later on, such as the HR-3300U in the United States, and HR-3300EK in the United Kingdom in January 1977. The United States received its first VHS-based VCR – the RCA VBT200 on August 23, 1977.[25] The RCA unit was designed by Matsushita, and was the first VHS-based VCR manufactured by a company other than JVC. It was also capable of recording four hours in LP (long play) mode. The United Kingdom later received its first VHS-based VCR – the Victor HR-3300EK in 1978.[26] Quasar and General Electric would follow-up with VHS-based VCRs – all designed by Matsushita.[27] By 1999, Matsushita alone produced just over half of all Japanese VCRs.[28] Technical details[edit] Cassette and tape design[edit] Top view of VHS with front casing removed The VHS cassette is a 187 mm wide, 103 mm deep, 25 mm thick (7​3⁄8 × 4​1⁄16 × 1 inch) plastic shell held together with five Phillips head screws. The flip-up cover that protects the tape has a built-in latch with a push-in toggle on the right side (bottom view image). The VHS cassette also includes an anti-despooling mechanism consisting of several plastic parts between the plastic spools, near the front of the tape (white and black in the top view). The spool latches are released by a push-in lever within a 6.35 mm (¼ inch) hole accessed from the bottom of the cassette, 19 mm (¾ inch) inwards from the edge label.[citation needed] There is a clear tape leader at both ends of the tape to provide an optical auto-stop for the VCR transport mechanism. A light source is inserted into the cassette through the circular hole in the center of the underside when loaded in the VCR, and two photodiodes are located to the left and right sides of where the tape exits the cassette. When the clear tape reaches one of these, enough light will pass through the tape to the photodiode to trigger the stop function; in more sophisticated machines it will start rewinding the cassette when the trailing end is detected. Early VCRs used an incandescent bulb as the light source, which regularly failed and caused the VCR to erroneously think that a cassette is loaded when empty, or would detect the blown bulb and stop functioning completely. Later designs use an infrared LED which had a much longer lifetime.[citation needed] The recording media is a 12.7 mm (½ inch) wide Oxide-coated Mylar[29] magnetic tape that is wound between two spools, allowing it to be slowly passed over the various playback and recording heads of the video cassette recorder. The tape speed for "Standard Play" mode (see below) is 3.335 cm/s (1.313 ips) for NTSC, 2.339 cm/s (0.921 ips) for PAL—or just over 2.0 and 1.4 metres (6 ft 6.7 in and 4 ft 7.2 in) per minute respectively. The tape length for a T-120 VHS cassette is 247.5 metres (812 ft).[30] Tape loading technique[edit] VHS M-loading system. As with almost all cassette-based videotape systems, VHS machines pull the tape out from the cassette shell and wrap it around the inclined head drum which rotates at 1798.2 rpm in NTSC machines[31] and at 1500 rpm for PAL, one complete rotation of the head corresponding to one video frame. VHS uses an "M-loading" system, also known as M-lacing, where the tape is drawn out by two threading posts and wrapped around more than 180 degrees of the head drum (and also other tape transport components) in a shape roughly approximating the letter M.[32] Recording capacity[edit] The interior of a modern VHS VCR showing the drum and tape. A VHS cassette holds a maximum of about 430 m (1,410 ft) of tape at the lowest acceptable tape thickness, giving a maximum playing time of about four hours in a T-240/DF480 for NTSC and five hours in an E-300 for PAL at "standard play" (SP) quality. More frequently however, VHS tapes are thicker than the required minimum to avoid complications such as jams or tears in the tape.[22] Other speeds include "long play" (LP), and "extended play" (EP) or "super long play" (SLP) (standard on NTSC; rarely found on PAL machines). For NTSC, LP and EP/SLP doubles and triples the recording time accordingly, but these speed reductions cause a reduction in video quality – from the normal 250 lines in SP, to 230 analog lines horizontal in LP and even less in EP/SLP. The slower speeds cause a very noticeable reduction in linear (non-hifi) audio track quality as well, as the linear tape speed becomes much lower than what is commonly considered a satisfactory minimum for audio recording.[citation needed] Tape lengths[edit] Both NTSC and PAL/SECAM VHS cassettes are physically identical (although the signals recorded on the tape are incompatible). However, as tape speeds differ between NTSC and PAL/SECAM, the playing time for any given cassette will vary accordingly between the systems. In order to avoid confusion, manufacturers indicate the playing time in minutes that can be expected for the market the tape is sold in. It is perfectly possible to record and play back a blank T-XXX tape in a PAL machine or a blank E-XXX tape in an NTSC machine, but the resulting playing time will be different from that indicated.... Signal standards[edit] VHS can record and play back all varieties of analog television signals in existence at the time VHS was devised. However, a machine must be designed to record a given standard. Typically, a VHS machine can only handle signals using the same standard as the country it was sold in. This is because some parameters of analog broadcast TV are not applicable to VHS recordings, the number of VHS tape recording format variations is smaller than the number of broadcast TV signal variations—for example, analog TVs and VHS machines (except multistandard devices) are not interchangeable between the UK and Germany, but VHS tapes are. The following tape recording formats exist in conventional VHS (listed in the form of standard/lines/frames): SECAM/625/25 (SECAM, French variety) MESECAM/625/25 (most other SECAM countries, notably the former Soviet Union and Middle East) NTSC/525/30 (Most parts of Americas, Japan, South Korea) PAL/525/30 (i.e., PAL-M, Brazil) PAL/625/25 (most of Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, many parts of Asia such as China and India, some parts of South America such as Argentina, Uruguay and the Falklands, and Africa) Note that PAL/625/25 VCRs allow playback of SECAM (and MESECAM) tapes with a monochrome picture, and vice versa, as the line standard is the same. Since the 1990s, dual and multi-standard VHS machines, able to handle a variety of VHS-supported video standards, became more common. For example, VHS machines sold in Australia and Europe could typically handle PAL, MESECAM for record and playback, and NTSC for playback only on suitable TVs. Dedicated multi-standard machines can usually handle all standards listed, and some high-end models could convert the content of a tape from one standard to another on the fly during playback by using a built-in standards converter. S-VHS is only implemented as such in PAL/625/25 and NTSC/525/30; S-VHS machines sold in SECAM markets record internally in PAL, and convert between PAL and SECAM during recording and playback. S-VHS machines for the Brazilian market record in NTSC and convert between it and PAL-M. A small number of VHS decks are able to decode closed captions on video cassettes before sending the full signal to the set with the captions. A smaller number still are able, additionally, to record subtitles transmitted with world standard teletext signals (on pre-digital services), simultaneously with the associated program. S-VHS has a sufficient resolution to record teletext signals with relatively few errors.[45] Logo[edit] The first VHS Logo The VHS logo was commissioned by JVC and introduced with the JVC HR-3300 in 1976. It uses the Lee font, designed by Leo Weisz.[46] Uses in marketing[edit] VHS was popular for long-form content, such as feature films or documentaries, as well as short-play content, such as music videos, in-store videos, teaching videos, distribution of lectures and talks, and demonstrations. VHS instruction tapes were sometimes included with various products and services, including exercise equipment, kitchen appliances, and computer software.[citation needed] VHS vs. Betamax[edit] Main article: Videotape format war Size comparison between Betamax (top) and VHS (bottom) videocassettes. VHS was the winner of a protracted and somewhat bitter format war during the late 1970s and early 1980s against Sony's Betamax format as well as other formats of the time.[7] Betamax was widely perceived at the time as the better format, as the cassette was smaller in size, and Betamax offered slightly better video quality than VHS – it had lower video noise, less luma-chroma crosstalk, and was marketed as providing pictures superior to those of VHS. However, the sticking point for both consumers and potential licensing partners of Betamax was the total recording time.[18] To overcome the recording limitation, Beta II speed (two-hour mode, NTSC regions only) was released in order to compete with VHS's two-hour SP mode, thereby reducing Betamax's horizontal resolution to 240 lines (vs 250 lines).[47] In turn, the extension of VHS to VHS HQ produced 250 lines (vs 240 lines), so that overall a typical Betamax/VHS user could expect virtually identical resolution. (Very high-end Betamax machines still supported recording in the Beta I mode and some in an even higher resolution Beta Is (Beta I Super HiBand) mode, but at a maximum single-cassette run time of 1:40 [with an L-830 cassette].) Because Betamax was released more than a year before VHS, it held an early lead in the format war. However, by 1981, United States' Betamax sales had dipped to only 25-percent of all sales.[48] There was debate between experts over the cause of Betamax's loss. Some, including Sony's founder Akio Morita, say that it was due to Sony's licensing strategy with other manufacturers, which consistently kept the overall cost for a unit higher than a VHS unit, and that JVC allowed other manufacturers to produce VHS units license-free, thereby keeping costs lower.[49] Others say that VHS had better marketing, since the much larger electronics companies at the time (Matsushita, for example) supported VHS.[18] Sony would make its first VHS players/recorders in 1988, although it continued to produce Betamax machines concurrently until 2002.... The VHS VCR was a mainstay in television-equipped American and European living rooms for more than 20 years from its introduction in 1977. The home television recording market, as well as the camcorder market, has since transitioned to digital recording on solid-state memory cards. The introduction of the DVD format to American consumers in March 1997 triggered the market share decline of VHS.[8] DVD rentals surpassed those on the VHS format in the United States for the first time in June 2003.[51] Though 94.5 million Americans still owned VHS format VCRs in 2005,[8] market share continued to drop. In the mid-2000s, several retail chains in the United States and Europe announced they would stop selling VHS equipment.[52][53][54] In the U.S., no major brick-and-mortar retailers stock VHS home-video releases, focusing only on DVD and Blu-ray media. The last known company in the world to manufacture VHS equipment was Funai of Japan, who produced videotape recorders under the Sanyo brand in China and North America. Funai ceased production of VHS equipment in July 2016, citing falling sales and a shortage of components.[11] Modern use[edit] A badly molded VHS tape. Mold can prevent modern use. See Media preservation. Despite the decline in both VHS players and programming on VHS machines, they are still owned in some households worldwide. Those who still use or hold on to VHS do so for a number of reasons, including nostalgic value, ease of use in recording, keeping personal videos or home movies, watching content currently exclusive to VHS, and collecting. Some expatriate communities in the United States also obtain video content from their native countries in VHS format.[55] Although VHS has been discontinued in the United States, VHS recorders and blank tapes were still sold at stores in other developed countries prior to digital television transitions.[56][57][58] As an acknowledgement of the continued use of VHS, Panasonic announced the world's first dual deck VHS-Blu-ray player in 2009.[59] The last standalone JVC VHS-only unit was produced October 28, 2008.[60] JVC, and other manufacturers, continued to make combination DVD+VHS units even after the decline of VHS. A market for pre-recorded VHS tapes has continued, and some online retailers such as Amazon still sell new and used pre-recorded VHS cassettes of movies and television programs. None of the major Hollywood studios generally issue releases on VHS, the last major studio film to be released in the format in the United States, other than as part of special marketing promotions, was A History of Violence in 2006. In October 2008, Distribution Video Audio Inc., the last major American supplier of pre-recorded VHS tapes, shipped its final truckload of tapes to stores in America.[9] However, there have been a few exceptions. For example, The House of the Devil was released on VHS in 2010 as an Amazon-exclusive deal, in keeping with the film's intent to mimic 1980s horror films.[61] The horror film V/H/S/2 was released as a combo in North America that included a VHS tape in addition to a Blu-ray and a DVD copy on September 24, 2013.[62] Successors[edit] VCD[edit] See also: Video CD The Video CD (VCD) was created in 1993, becoming an alternative medium for video, in a CD-sized disc. Though occasionally showing compression artifacts and color banding that are common discrepancies in digital media, the durability and longevity of a VCD depends on the production quality of the disc, and its handling. The data stored digitally on a VCD theoretically does not degrade (in the analog sense like tape). In the disc player, there is no physical contact made with either the data or label sides. When handled properly, a VCD will last a long time. Since a VCD can hold only 74 minutes of video, a movie exceeding that mark has to be divided into two or more discs. DVD[edit] See also: DVD-Video The DVD-Video format was introduced first on November 1, 1996, in Japan; to the United States on March 26, 1997 (test marketed); and mid-to-late 1998 in Europe and Australia. Despite DVD's better quality (typical horizontal resolution of 480 versus 250 lines per picture height), and the availability of standalone DVD recorders, VHS is still used in home recording of video content. The commercial success of DVD recording and re-writing has been hindered by a number of factors including: A reputation for being temperamental and unreliable, as well as the risk of scratches and hairline cracks.[63] Incompatibilities in playing discs recorded on a different manufacturer's machines to that of the original recording machine.[64] Compression artifacts: MPEG-2 video compression can result in visible artifacts such as macroblocking, mosquito noise and ringing which become accentuated in extended recording modes (more than three hours on a DVD-5 disc). Standard VHS will not suffer from any of these problems, all of which are characteristic of certain digital video compression systems (see Discrete cosine transform) but VHS will result in reduced luminance and chroma resolution, which makes the picture look horizontally blurred (resolution decreases further with LP and EP recording modes).[65] VHS also adds considerable noise to both the luminance and chroma channels.[citation needed] High-capacity digital recording technologies[edit] See also: Digital video recorder High-capacity digital recording systems are also gaining in popularity with home users. These types of systems come in several form factors: Hard disk–based set-top boxes Hard disk/optical disc combination set-top boxes Personal computer–based media center Portable media players with TV-out capability Hard disk-based systems include TiVo as well as other digital video recorder (DVR) offerings. These types of systems provide users with a no-maintenance solution for capturing video content. Customers of subscriber-based TV generally receive electronic program guides, enabling one-touch setup of a recording schedule. Hard disk–based systems allow for many hours of recording without user-maintenance. For example, a 120 GB system recording at an extended recording rate (XP) of 10 Mbit/s MPEG-2 can record over 25 hours of video content.[citation needed] Legacy[edit] Often considered an important medium of film history, the influence of VHS on art and cinema was highlighted in a retrospective staged at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2013.[66][67][68][69] In 2015, the Yale University Library collected nearly 3,000 horror and exploitation movies on VHS tapes, distributed from 1978 to 1985, calling them "the cultural id of an era."[70][71][72][73] The documentary film Rewind This! (2013), directed by Josh Johnson, tracks the impact of VHS on film industry through various filmmakers and collectors." (wikipedia.org)
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