Richard Robinson bought a Sony Betamax three years ago. He paid about $1,100 dollars for the machine. Today, three years later, it is worth at least $40. A likeable fellow, Richard feels betrayed by the Sony Corporation, who have outmoded his one-hour record-playback Betamax with their new three-hour record-playback Betamax. The new Betamax will not replay cassettes recorded on his old Betamax. Video cassette recorder salesmen laugh in his face when he asks how much they'll give him on his old Betamax as a trdde-in against the cost of a new Betamax.

■ I never thought the day would come when I'd side with RCA against Sony in the fierce competition for supremacy in the home video machine war. I don't like the Radio Corporation of America too much. Partly because I worked for their record company once and found out some nasty realities about the corporate consciousness, and partly because I never thought that RCA knew what it was doing when it came to new consumer hardware (i.e.: RCA's black and white video games when everybody else had color cheaper; RCA's 50's approach to color TV when Sony was pioneering Trinitron; and other bitches that kept me from being a stockholder). But with the introduction of home video, RCA, in conjunction with Panasonic's video cassette design, has put America back on top and beaten Sony at their own game.