Happy Birthday to the Compact Disc

Options
2»

Comments

  • honestaquarian
    honestaquarian Posts: 3,186
    Options
    Come to think of it Phillips introduced the Compact Disc around the same time they brought out the Laserdisc. The former came out a few years after the latter.
  • pitdogg2
    pitdogg2 Posts: 24,574
    Options
    Come to think of it Phillips introduced the Compact Disc around the same time they brought out the Laserdisc. The former came out a few years after the latter.

    1st generation laser disc I seem to remember had a needle like stylist that rode the disc like a needle. This was at least a decade before the true laser disc came out. Both had a shiney prismatic surface we all know. I just remember eyeing at the local Bergners electronics dept. Anybody remember when Bergners had electronics and hunting and fishing departments? Time frame about 1977-78
  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 33,042
    edited March 2019
    Options
    pitdogg2 wrote: »
    Come to think of it Phillips introduced the Compact Disc around the same time they brought out the Laserdisc. The former came out a few years after the latter.

    1st generation laser disc I seem to remember had a needle like stylist that rode the disc like a needle. This was at least a decade before the true laser disc came out. Both had a shiney prismatic surface we all know. I just remember eyeing at the local Bergners electronics dept. Anybody remember when Bergners had electronics and hunting and fishing departments? Time frame about 1977-78

    That's the RCA Capacitive Disk (CED) analog system for video/audio playback. Wild gizmo. I saw a 1940s era RCA TV (the classic 10" round tube tabletop RCA of that era) being demoed with period-appropriate programming (e.g., Three Stoges) via an RCA Videodisk player last Sunday at the NEARC antique electronics swapmeet. The video was actually very, very good. Surprisingly good.

    I'd have bought the TV but Mrs. H woulda killed me dead forever had I come home with it.

    I actually took a coupla photos of it with my ancient cell phone's camera... I'll have to see if I can get 'em off of the phone & I'll share one someplace, sometime.

    :)
  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 33,042
    edited March 2019
    Options
    Here's Radio Shack's version (1982).

    y77d2fgtfp8d.png
    source: www.radioshackcatalogs.com (1982)

    https://youtu.be/Nnzs6IgMc2E
  • honestaquarian
    honestaquarian Posts: 3,186
    Options
    Yup
    The CED Videodisc and the Laserdisc were two of three competing Videodisc formats. I cannot for the life of me recall the third one. Like @pitdogg2 most consumers did not realize there was more than one format of the Videodisc, so when RCA killed off the CED Videodisc it nearly spelled the end of Laserdiscs in the US. EVERYONE dropped it (including Phillips) with the sole exception of Pioneer. They kept it alive in the USA all alone making the hardware and the software. It was also Pioneer’s engineers who discovered by accident they could put the 16 bit, 44.1khz digital audio that the Compact Disc used on a Laserdisc. This is what brought the format back to life in America.
  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 33,042
    edited March 2019
    Options
    ... It was also Pioneer’s engineers who discovered by accident they could put the 16 bit, 44.1khz digital audio that the Compact Disc used on a Laserdisc. This is what brought the format back to life in America.


    by accident as in:
    Here, Yoshi, hold my Sapporo biru, and watch this!

    ?

  • honestaquarian
    honestaquarian Posts: 3,186
    Options
    If memory serves 3M invented the Videodisc in 1969. I don't recall what format it was though.