Wow. 1975. I sold them in '79 in my first job. We had both Beta and VHS, the Sony Betamax decks were fantastic, the early VHS decks were absolute crap. I remember this one VHS deck that when you changed the speed setting between the 2/4/6 hour modes, it changed the speed during playback! It was kinda cool, but someone definitely dropped the ball (or got really cheap!) on that one.
A superior format doomed by high prices and too restrictive of licensing. Oh, and you couldn't record for as long on it. Once again, or perhaps presaging what has apparently become Sony policy, come out with something really cool but unrealistically expensive and let our competitors eat our lunch!
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/dayintech_0607