Portapak
The Portapak was the first light half-inch video unit, launched
on the American market by Sony in 1965. It included a camera and
a portable black-and-white tape deck.Thanks to a Rockefeller
Foundation fellowship, Nam June Paik became the first artist to
buy such a light video unit. He inaugurated his brand-new
Portapak by taping the taxi ride from his New York studio to the
Café Au Go-Go, where, on 4 October 1965 he showed the resulting
tape accompanied by a text entitled "Electronic Video
Recorder."