Wow, that is neat! So when the VCR is detached, can it run on DC power?

it would if the battery was any good.  the pack was shorted and physically damaged so I recycled it.

Ah, I need a little help. My mother bought me an Apple TV for Christmas, and I thought that I could just buy an HDMI to three RCA cable and plug it into the RF modulator like a DVD player. Not working. It doesn't even activate the RF modulator at all. Any ideas? Getting a phlat skreen TV is not an option. I hate them with a passion.

That cable is just passing the digital HD signal through it. It needs to be actually converted to analog. You need a converter like this one:

http://www.amazon.ca/HDE-1080p-Composite-Adapter-Converter/dp/B00TUD6J9E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452744741&sr=8-1&keywords=hdmi+converter+to+rca

Okay. Any idea why that cable even exists? It doesn't seem too useful.

Early HDTVs didn't have HDMI ports, so you'd use that cable to connect a modern device with an HDMI port to them.

I'm afraid a cable (or box) converting HDMI to analog won't be obtainable in regular shops, or it will refuse to play protected media.
The reason is the DMCA and the DRM features of the HDMI (especially the authentication of the complete chain till the screen), because such feature is not possible over the analog line.
So fo that box would mimic a TV or monitor towards the HDMI port and then send the analog signal, it will violate the DMCA and so be illegal in the US (therefore no regular shop will carry such thing).
So to be legal, that box would not be allowed to authenticate itself as the TV or so. And when the signal line is not authenticated, the protected media are not allowed to play.
By the way this authentication is, why it take so long when connecting till the picture appear, the authentication goes over rather slow I2C (with the expected cable length the maximum speed is way below the 100kbps of the standard old I2C)...

On Videokarma, I was told that the cable is useless and is a scam.

They actually are used for the purpose I mentioned, but the way they are advertised, with no implication of being for HDTVs only, is indeed shady.

I think I'll cut it open and see if there is even a wire in there. Then I'll just use the metal braid as a decoration for a radio power cord or something.