On 10 Nov 2007 at 15:04, Jay West wrote:
Someone wrote....
Actually laserdiscs certainly are
That's a stretch... I'm not buying it :)
Jay, would you mind if I took the subject back OT? Laserdiscs hold a
special place in my brain. I recall seeing a demo of the Pioneer
Laserdisc player around 1980 or so in the local Macy's (that was when
Macy's was the place to go to see the latest in consumer
electronics). I went home with a bunch of brochures and sat
calculating the capacity of a Laserdisc in bytes--my numbers were
very exciting. I can remember saying to my wife that evening "Do you
realize how this invention will transform information storage?".
I wasn't the only one thinking this way, apparently. Here's a great
story about rescuing the Beeb's 1986 Domesday Book project:
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue36/tna/
Do any of the cclist-ers in the UK still have any LV-ROMs and
hardware? I'd be willing to wager that Tony does. :)
For what it's worth, I was amazed that RCA had the courage to market
their Videodisc kludge a year later in 1981. The technology seems to
have died a mercifully early death.
Cheers,
Chuck