Some technological anachronisms are truly fabulous. We've already seen an Austrian TV from the '70s turned into a YouTube player and a German WEGA from 1980 powered by a Raspberry Pi, but today we have something that involves... a VCR. Inspired by an old French webcomic, the user "Ghettobastler" created a hybrid between a French Minitel terminal, a VHS unit and a Raspberry Pi to download and record YouTube videos directly onto tape.
Losing legacy connectors, functions and services has sent many devices into permanent retirement, but a little creativity can always bring them back to life, even just for fun. It doesn't have to be something practical: what matters is that it works, and that it isn't too complicated to reproduce.
Minitel: the French precursor to the Internet
With that in mind, we head over to the portal of user "Ghettobastler", who has shared several projects based on Minitel terminals. If the name doesn't ring a bell, Minitel was a French videotext service that served as a precursor to the Internet between 1980 and 2012. Although it peaked at nine million terminals, today it's considered a kind of technological cul-de-sac, but there are still units out there. What did Ghettobastler do? Connect a Minitel terminal to a Raspberry Pi to download YouTube videos... and record them on VHS.
YouTube Minitel: the Web on your VCR
So how did Ghettobastler come up with this idea? The answer lies in a webcomic from 2011 by French artist Boulet. Titled Formicapunk, this work shows us an equivalent to steampunk, inspired by French aesthetics and technology from the late '70s and early '80s. The dinosaur Casimir from L'Île aux enfants, the Concorde announcement (Paris-New York in 4 hours!) and the Citroën 2CV all clearly point in that direction.
A Raspberry Pi at the heart of the system
The brain behind this Minitel system is none other than a Raspberry Pi. Ghettobastler had to build a logic level converter so the mini computer wouldn't end up extra-crispy from the 15V on the terminal's lines. Add a good dose of Python to generate basic graphics and coordinate the whole search-download-play-record process.
Getting the video from the Raspberry Pi to the VHS tape is simple thanks to the RCA outputs and inputs, but the real challenge is automating the VCR. After exploring the inside, Ghettobastler changed his strategy and decided to emulate the remote control with LIRC and a small infrared emitter stuck over the VCR's sensor.
Ready to go back to VHS?
Are we ready to go back to VHS and wait for each video to be recorded? Personally, the answer is a resounding "no", but who knows? Maybe this is the path technology followed in some parallel world...
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