The reason the second Beta video machine and the movies were so cheap was because Beta was being replaced by something called VHS. Unfortunately I didn't know it at the time and just figured I was getting a good deal. I mean, why would a business stop making a perfectly good machine like the Beta? It didn't make sense to me.

That just goes to show you how stupid I can be because it wasn't long before I was in line to buy a VHS video machine. The problem was that you couldn't find any videos on Beta, except in my basement storage room.

I remember the last time I went into a video-rental place and asked if they had any Beta movies. The guy behind the counter yelled across the room — "This guy wants to rent a Beta movie!" — and I heard laughter throughout the store. I had a feeling my Beta days were over.

It could be no worse than if I went into a record store and asked to see their collection of 33-rpm albums or maybe a 45 record . . . "You know that little record with a big hole in the middle?" The guy behind the counter would either laugh until the rings in his nose and eyebrows jiggled or would look at me and utter the favorite word of young clerks around the world when you ask them a complex question, like, "Where is something": "Huh?"

The way I figure it is that people who make things like Beta and 45 records eventually make enough so that everyone who wants to buy a Beta or a record player that plays 45s has bought them. The folks making these things have a choice: They can say to themselves that they did a real good job and everyone owns a machine so it's about time they went out of business. Or they can invent a new machine that does pretty much the same thing as the old machine, only it doesn't do it with the same stuff and you have to buy a new machine and new stuff to make it work.

This is the way you keep the economy going. Let's say Bill Gates made computers and programs that lasted 20 years instead of a year. Sort of like a refrigerator or a washing machine. It wouldn't be long before everyone had a computer humming away and Bill Gates wouldn't have a bazillion dollars. All those people working at Microsoft would be unemployed and looking for something to occupy their time. It's a frightening thought.

I took an economy class years ago in college and the professor said an engineer had invented a light bulb that lasted for years. But he said the inventor was bought off and the light bulb disappeared. Why? Because a long-lasting light bulb would put too many light-bulb factories out of business and too many people out of work.

Now you can buy light bulbs that look like corkscrews, and people claim they will last 10 years and burn less energy than an electric can opener. So what happened to all the people who used to make the old light bulbs?

I think they went to work making the latest gadget replacing my VHS. I was reading a story the other day that said some stores renting movies to watch at home are no longer renting VHS videos. They are renting only movies that come in DVDs, those little silver disks that have not only the movie you want to watch but all the stuff the director cut out of the movie, the mistakes that were made and interviews with everyone connected to the movie.

It's called progress. Learn to live with it and pay for it.