Video editing - not so fondly remembered

The first Reuters video editing system I came across was in 1974 in New York, where I believe it had been introduced the previous year. While it was a great leap forward from the paper and tape still in use elsewhere, it had a major design flaw - it had an Erase End Of Screen (EOS) tab next to the Send button at the top left of the screen. The result of hitting the wrong button, and wiping irretrievably all the work you had just done, became known as the EOS Scream. The most dramatic reaction I witnessed to this came the following year in Washington, when Lars-Erik Nelson jumped from his seat, turned off his machine with the key at its side (yes, they were that primitive), yanked open a window and threw the key out - into several inches of snow on 14th Street. He then stormed out of the office shouting that Reuters didn't pay him enough to write something a third ****** time. ■