If You Remember Beta vs. VHS . . .

You might remember some of these other battles for the American consumer's affection:

Hot Wheels vs. Johnny Lightning: I hear tell that Johnny Lightning cars were faster. And they did have a corporate sponsorship deal with Al Unser's Indy 500-winning race team. But I was a Hot Wheels guy. Cooler car designs, easier to lay out the track. Righteousness prevailed in this one.

Wrestling vs. Roller Derby: Hard to imagine it now, but the two had approximately equal profiles at one time. Nobody except kids took either seriously. In fact, where I grew up, the wrestling audience was a little younger; at about ten, you forgot about Moose Cholak, Baron von Raschke and Dick the Bruiser and started paying more attention to the Joanie Weston, Earline "747" Brown and Ralphie Valladeres. The fact that Roller Derby was a bit more popular and more appealing to a slightly older audience is evidenced by the making of the 1972 Saturday-afternoon-for-kids-at-the-movies flick Kansas City Bomber, starring Raquel Welch. Roller Derby's proprietors probably still can't understand how wrestling got to be so much bigger in the last couple of decades -- which is why we keep seeing attempts to revive the skating spectacle.

Direct Drive vs. Belt Drive: It used to be a young man's job to be well-informed on the merits of the latest consumer electronics technology, in case he ever fell into enough money to buy some of it. Back when music was listened to in homes and generated by the scraping of phonograph needles across grooves in vinyl discs, there was a period of some disagreement about the best method for rotating the platter that turned those discs. This disagreement wasn't of the "reasonable minds can come to different conclusions" variety. In fact, it was somewhat more intensely argued than spats about religion, because you could at least understand how someone would adopt the religion of his parents and not want to think any more about it. Turntables, on the other hand, were items you were free to choose on your own, and only a fool would choose anything other than the best kind when spending the kind of money we hoped to be shelling out some day. The best kind was either the kind that connected the record platter directly to the rotating motor (Pioneer, Technics, Denon) or the kind that drove the platter with a belt from the motor (Dual, BIC, AR, Thorens). The winner? Almost all DJs embraced direct drives, and if they still play records, that's the kind they use; home listeners have mostly settled on belt drives. As a reflection of the split decision, I have one of each.

Texas Instruments vs. Bowmar: Who was going to be the leading seller of the newfangled reasonably small, affordable calculator? Texas Instruments calculators were generally bigger and clunkier than the Bowmar Brains, which looked cooler, had a better display and wittier commercials. Seems as if there was some difference in the relative successes of the decisions made by the respective corporate management teams, though.

Atari vs. Intellivision: If it was for kids, Mattel would dominate the market, right? After all, where was Johnny Lightning in the 1980s? Well, not so fast. Intellivision had games with more detailed graphics and play. But there were fewer of them. And the controllers were clunkier and less intuitive. On top of that, Mattel made an interesting branding choice: it tried to position itself upmarket from Atari, with a more expensive system, more involved games, and ads featuring author George Plimpton as the spokesperson. The video game system for grownups who like to read? Don't think it sold quite as well as Mattel might have hoped.

VHS vs. LaserDisc: No, the battle with Beta wasn't the only format war for VHS. There was also LaserDisc. Then again, LaserDiscs couldn't record and needed the size of a record album to hold no more information than today's DVDs. Their prime advantage was picture quality, at a time when most consumers didn't see much wrong with over-the-air TV signals retrieved by an antenna. So maybe this was more of a minor skirmish.

Hyundai vs. Yugo: Car prices were creeping up through the 80s: though $7995 was the base price for a sports car as cool as a Mazda RX-7 in 1979, the same amount was only getting you an entry level economy car eight years later. A couple of carmakers decided that America could appreciate a bit less car for a bit less money; the Yugo and the Hyundai Excel both advertised base prices of under $5000 for the 1987 model year. The country that produced the Yugo has since separated into component parts that survive and, I hope, thrive. The cars had the separating part down, but I haven't seen any evidence of any Yugo bits surviving. Meanwhile, Hyundai is going upscale, aiming its new Genesis models at the customers who had happy experiences with the early cheap cars and are ready to spend a bit more on their transportation. If you're stumped by the concept of an "upscale" Hyundai, you might want to consider the possibility that your parents were probably similarly stumped by the concept of an upscale Toyota. Lexus marketeers ignored them to focus on you and seemed to do okay with that approach, so it may be time to face the possibility that you've entered the age group that sellers of trendy consumer goods willingly shun.

SACD vs. DVD-Audio: Scratching your head at this one? Don't recognize either of the combatants? You're not alone. This was a battle with no winners. After selling us on the idea that the Compact Disc would give us perfect sound forever, audio equipment manufacturers turned their attentions to improving on perfection. They came up with "high resolution" audio formats: they used the same sort of discs as the familiar CD to provide sound that was as much of an improvement over standard CD quality as high-definition TV was over standard broadcasts. Sony and Phillips came up with Super Audio CD, while Panasonic developed DVD-Audio. The two discs were incompatible, which meant one thing: format war. Consumers, remembering Beta vs. VHS, decided to get some answers before plunking down their cash on new players and a bunch of new discs. Like, "Which format sounds so much better than CD that I won't be able to resist replacing my old music with new discs?" Answer: Neither. And, "Which format is used in so many new releases and reissues of old favorites that I'll have the chance to start making most of my music purchases in high-res form?" Answer: Neither. Plus, "Which format will make portable players, players for cars, and players for some place other than a audio snob's home system?" Answer: Neither. Which means that the burning question for audiophiles circa 2001, "Which will become the format that wins?" got the same answer: Neither.