In honor of the 57th anniversary of the first commercial video cassette recorder, YouTube today is offering “VHS mode” on several of its videos.

On select videos, YouTube has added a small videotape icon on the bottom right menu, to the left of the closed caption option. Click that and your video will bring you back to the 80s, when adjusting the tracking on your VCR for a clear picture was a common (and infuriating) task.

“Just click to turn back the clock and enjoy the static and fuzzy motion of the VHS era,” YouTube said in a Google+ post(Opens in a new window).

YouTube did not say how many of its videos would receive the VHS treatment, or how long the feature would be live. But it’s available on everything from this “Do The Cosmonauty(Opens in a new window)” video to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s recent plea to battle the CISPA cyber-security bill. It does not appear to work on embedded videos, so head over to YouTube.com to see it in action.

YouTube is celebrating the 1956 launch of the Ampex VRX-1000(Opens in a new window), which was unveiled at the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters in Chicago. It was the first practical videotape recorder, but it cost $50,000 so was only available to TV stations.

The first consumer video recorder – the Telcan(Opens in a new window) – made its debut in 1963. But the device, produced by the Nottingham Electronic Valve Company, was only sold in kit form, so a certain level of technical expertise was required to get it to work.

The technology really took off in the 80s, and prompted one of the better-known format wars: VHS vs. Betamax. As we all know, VHS emerged victorious over Sony’s Betamax, helped along in part by the porn industry’s adoption of VHS. Years later, the adult industry would also weigh in on the DVD format fight: HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, which seemed to end rather abruptly when Warner Bros. put its support behind Blu-ray at CES 2008.