How Did Old School Lets Plays Do It

Today I read through an old lets play of Zelda 1 and it inspired me to start one of my own that'll be on my site eventually and: fucking hell, how did people manage these back in the day. I had so many deaths caused by damage while I was trying to take "screenshots" of my game with a digital camera. Normally I'd use my capture card, but the 1080p capable, USB3 lump of metal isn't exactly well supported in Windows 2000. I know there was a strong contingent of people who'd just record their gameplay to vhs and pull their shots from those later or have someone else take pics for them, but a few people must've gone this route and they definitely get my respect for it. I think I'm gonna try to continue but maybe as a purely text write-up until I can record footage.