LGR Oddware - Tattooing CD-Rs with Yamaha DiscT@2

[@AdhamOhm]

The fact that there are even options to change the text color in the T@2 editor tells me that it was originally a CD label editing program (for paper labels) and the coders didn't bother to remove the color options. You just gotta love bundled software.

[@lillys9876]

One thing that I think is really beautiful about this channel, is the longer LRG goes on, Clint actually looks happier, healthier and more full of life with each passing day. I don't know if you'll see this Clint, but if you do, I just wanna say I love seeing you love what you do so much. ♥

[@TheGoggengames]

Or maybe he has finally succumbed to corona coma?

[@ryanpascual9598]

*LRG*

[@WhitekidCvsual]

@@ryanpascual9598 Lazy Rock Graphing

[@ReallyRyan.]

LRG? You actually bothered to edit the comment and still left that in?

[@frazerbrennan9245]

Thats a really nice comment mate. Now you mention it, I see what you mean; hes glowing now a days

[@shelby3822]

I can just hear the R&D manager: "That is an interesting idea...you can use company resources but you work on it on your own time"

[@boreaousx]

This becoming real feels more at home at RCA in the 70's trying to birth CED.

[@mrbravo365]

I just happen to land on this page randomly and it brought back fond memories. Back in the early 2000s, we had a music label doing rap music in Houston. We had a studio, made mixtapes, recording, engineering, etc. I saw the drives online and I purchased a Yamaha F1 Internal drive and was excited to use the Disc T@2. Remarkably, we did buy the expensive CDRs but weren't happy with the results and it wasn't cost effective; if I recall, the CDRs were around 4/5 bucks a pop. We ended up trying a few different ones (including the Memorex color ones you used!) but eventually we tried the regular CD-Rs we always got at Fry's, their in house brand, the GQ CD-Rs. It looked pretty dope. We started doing our mixes to only about 50/60 minutes to leave as much room as possible for the tattoo. It was a huge hit; folks loved it and we even used it to our advantage that "If it ain't tatted it's some wack shht" (I know, it sounds corny, but it was actually pretty tough). We used the system as a copyright / legit way of verifying our CDs (even though all the music and instrumentals we used we downloaded illegally through Soulseek / FTP DJ only record pools). We used the Avery labels on the front like everyone else did but the T@2 was our call sign. We sold so many CDs from the back our cars, at clubs, at the park, I bought my first Cadillac that way. The drive itself was incredibly sturdy as well. We had a several burners going and even had a multi burner that burned 4 CDRs at a time but because we wanted the special label we burned almost all our CDs for several moths with that burner. Eventually we would only do special editions with the tattoo because we couldn't keep up, even after buying another Yamaha burner. Eventually, my homie / partner got locked up and my second son was soon to be born and we shut everything down. In a final act of pettiness, I did sell my rig with one of the drives but switched out the version of the NERO that was on there as the guy I was selling it to was a frenemy and intended to do the same work we did. MF never got it going and I'm sure he never figured it out.

[@seanc6128]

I'm glad I'm experiencing this twenty years later rather than being a disappointed teenager trying to get it to work.

[@RLD_Media]

I was a dissapointted 7 year old that got really upset.

[@Aleph-Noll]

@@RLD_Media press F to pay respects

[@GearSeekers]

I love that in the 90's and 2000's they used the @ symbol as part of marketing everything 🤣

[@LGR]

U got th@ rite

[@davidshepherd265]

It seemed so futuristic at the time. God I miss those days.

[@matthewryan6187]

T@2 it's so ridiculous it's brilliant

[@gophop]

the future is now, old man!

[@the_kombinator]

Also e. Lower case e before everything, then the next letter is a capital. Not a lot of that left, with eBay being the eXception.

[@eddiehimself]

Spelling Tattoo as "T@2"... nothing gets more late 90s/early 2000s than that LMAO.

[@metfan4l]

9:08 oohh that transition was nice

[@TomBudin]

hahahahahahhahahaha omg

[@Epinardscaramel]

@@TomBudin k

[@lovelyheiferdev]

Dang that's cool!

[@alguiennoimportante]

Neutral answer

[@rossini138]

I knew what this was going to be before I clicked on the time stamp! Niiiice

[@GameHammerCG]

“You can’t see the tattoos!” So basically this is a device for reducing the usable area of a CD?

[@SaintCyrX]

TAKE MY MONEY!

[@Ganiscol]

I'll take two because I'm not using CDs anymore! 🤑

[@lonewretch]

He said that in the video, no?

[@Ale.K7]

And extend the time it takes to burn them!

[@GameHammerCG]

@@Ale.K7 Excellent. I've always wanted to waste more time!

[@lazarus2863]

I still own my USB 2.0 version of this drive and I love it! I've never used the Disc T@2 function, and am unlikely to ever do so. But, I work in the audio industry and the Master Quality whatever they call it is a terrific feature that is still useful for me to this day. (I work sales and I used burn discs often for demo purposes). When writing a CD-R at high speeds, high-end CD players often can be finicky about reading them accurately. Audiophiley CD players are notorious for skipping more frequently than many budget players. (I don't know if it's because better DACs try to avoid error correction or if something else is at play. I'll let more qualified folk debate that) They're especially really picky about CD-Rs, sometimes skipping too easily or not wanting to read at all. The master quality feature burns the pits and lands extra wide, which makes it easier for the pickup to read. It also reduces the amount of usable space on the CDR by a small amount, but I never found a player that wouldn't play them without any issue at all. Even the pickiest, most delicate CD transports read the discs without error or skips or general grumbling. And it made my car CD player at the time far more skip resistant, too. CD Players may be less common these days, but when I find a need to burn an audio disc, I still dust this thing off and use it.

[@siralexander3359]

What does the Mt Ranier compatibility mean?

[@jsc315]

When I was in High School in the early 2000s I had a friend in a band and did this on their CD's of their logo and I was blown away how they were able to do this. Nope I finally have my answer 20 years later. I had no idea this was a thing!

[@BathBombTheRussians]

I remember duplicating band demos on one of these and feeling all special 😂 it was at least way better than a sharpie or paper label 🤷

[@lonewretch]

my god I was in year 9 in 1986. you already had quite large mobile phones while in high school. I feel so old....

[@webmasale]

@@lonewretch If you had a mobile in 86 you must've been pretty rich, land-line calls were expensive I can't imagine mobile.

[@lonewretch]

@@webmasale people had those mobiles back then, you know the ones heavy as a suitcase full of money, but with the ability only connect to satellite. Stop liking your own posts, by the way.

[@doubtful_seer]

@@webmasale I don’t know exactly what year they started buying them given that I was born in 91, but my family had those car phones and we were and are nowhere near rich, or even middle class.

[@nak_vgm]

21:17 is the "Yeah, fuck it, I'm using that take" laugh and I LOVE it

[@LGR]

Precisely, no do-overs 😁

[@geeeeeeo]

@@LGR That was quite the rollercoaster of emotions and facial expressions

[@incorrectbeans]

Seems like the definition of a solution looking for a problem.

[@yuriythebest]

where it might actually have been useful is if used to show that a CD is genuine ( for example, for aspiring music artists, small software firms, etc), the same way some things have holograms on them. Of course, this can be faked but it at least adds an extra step, since the pirates would need to re-create the image manually since it can't really be scanned properly.

[@emilycampbell6375]

@@yuriythebest that implies that counterfeit music CDs were ever a problem though, i've never heard of that in my life

[@olivercharles2930]

@@emilycampbell6375 I find that hard to believe unless you have never used cds or burned stuff onto discs before.

[@djdjukic]

That CRT to image capture transition is an absolute masterpiece, I rewound the video like 5 times just to look at that.

[@TheSnarkMusic]

I thought the same, that was so simple yet so dope

[@WhitekidCvsual]

legitimately, definitely blew my mind~

[@lenselinkberinge]

9:06

[@HattmannenNilsson]

As instructed, I'm letting you know down here in the comments, that I very much did like seeing it - a certain percent at a time and from different angles.

[@lethauntic]

This seems like the kind of thing where someone would be in their room one day checking out their disks, holding one up to the light and going, "A-Are those... Words?"

[@Vuusteri]

This happens when engineers have too much time and companies too much money. AND I LOVE IT.

[@commodoresixfour7478]

No, this is what happens when (Good) engineers are allowed control. Sort of like GM in the 70's selling GMC Motorhomes. It was such a good product that GM was still selling them during the oil crisis! If it wasn't for the been counters they would still be selling them.

[@NotATube]

@@commodoresixfour7478 Thing is... it's a clever trick, but it's really not that great a commercial idea. Who wants to label the *underside* of their CDs? Lightscribe was a more sensible development of the same idea, and even *that* was ultimately "neat trick, but too many drawbacks".

[@whatr0]

@@NotATube I wouldnt even say Lightscribe had too many drawbacks, just that it was too little too late as recordable disc media was starting to be less of a thing the average consumer was doing by the time it came out.

[@NotATube]

@@whatr0 Not quite; Lightscribe came out in 2004, around the same time DVD-R writers and discs were becoming cheap enough to *really* take off. DVD-R sales peaked around the end of the decade. Lightscribe had several years during DVD-R's mid-to-late-2000s heyday to take off, it just... never did.

[@ProtoMario]

I can only see this being useful in the case of a company with sensitive disc information, where you wouldn't want someone removing or coving the label a top the cd/dvd for security reasons.

[@nslouka90]

If this was created a few years prior then it could have been an interesting DRM scheme as well.

[@alexdemoya2119]

You're onto something. You could use this product to permanently mark a CD for security. Like a watermark in essence.

[@KiraSlith]

@@nslouka90 Nintendo actually used a similar system for the DRM on Gamecube games, known as "BCA Marks".

[@JennyverseLive]

@Wazaag Break-head ...?

[@Zeon01]

@@JennyverseLive Talking about Proto

[@Scorpious187]

When the oddware is so odd Clint straight-up bluescreens the outtro

[@nysaea]

10/10 best bluescreen

[@needfuldoer4531]

Reminds me of when Regular Car Reviews lampooned Technology Connections. Wait... Bookcases full of relevant stuff? A wooden table? Outtakes at the end of the video? Does this mean Clint is Captain Disillusion?

[@alexsilva28]

What am I missing? i don't see the bluescreen

[@Scorpious187]

@@alexsilva28 it's not an actual blue screen, it's a figure of speech. The way he flubbed the ending was like a Windows blue screen error.

[@alexsilva28]

@@Scorpious187 Ohhhhh a BSOD lol

[@Kenthis15]

Man, in 2002 I could see myself buying one of these to make my bands single stand out at band battles and open mics. I was a gig manager around 2010 and we were always looking for gimmicks to make our samples stand out.

[@Raveheart]

You know it's the early 2000s when there's a Nero logo slapped on somewhere.

[@oz_jones]

And using @ in marketing

[@cppweekly]

I'm imaging the stacks of 1000's of test CDs the developers threw away while working on this.

[@ryanpascual9598]

Why?

[@oldveryveryoldmanfromthe1900s]

@@ryanpascual9598 because

[@gabrielv.4358]

lol

[@oriolgonzalez9328]

Nero Burning Rom...now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time...

[@launchpadmcquack9305]

That and the foot long tube of cd-r's from Office Depot

[@oriolgonzalez9328]

@@launchpadmcquack9305 ...must...avoid...penis...joke...AAARGH I'M USED TO HANDLE A FOOT LONG TUBE, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!

[@launchpadmcquack9305]

I've only been used to handling a roll of nickels

[@TubbyJ420]

I burned THOUSANDS of cds and dvds with nero back in the day. I have probably burned 5 discs in the last 5 years. How far we've come.

[@GroteB]

I just wrote the same thing, and then I scrolled down.

[@WalterBarnes]

Not only did I enjoy "seeing" this, I also enjoyed reading the closed captions. My favourite was "Oddware induced chuckle."

[@hihiou0zabimaru]

Man, I'm happy this was a good drive just in general, besides the "DiscT@2" gimmick - I was in high school when this released and for some reason my teenage self was convinced I needed to have this feature. I was sure it was going to be the coolest thing and oh so useful, so I saved up my money and bought an internal version of this drive. And rather predictably, I could count on one hand the number of times I actually used the DiscT@2 feature. And the CD-Rs I used when I first bought it were actually rather suitable, the "tattoo" showed up somewhat clearly on them, but of course it just wasn't as cool or nearly as useful as I thought it would be. I burned a lot of regular discs with it though, so it was useful in general - but today I'm entirely unsurprised that I never had any real use for the special feature. And seriously, DiscT@2 is the most early 2000's name on anything. Today I kind of feel embarrassed just for not having rejected it because of the name alone :)

[@therealmistermemer]

Lmao people actually bought it?

[@freakyfadge]

So the when the devices were new, the tattoo would show up clearly on the disc? Maybe the age of LGR's machine means his came through fainter?

[@the_kombinator]

How much did you pay for it? I recall buying just a regular burner in 1996 or 1997 (2X write, 4X read) for $400 (CAD) cash from the place I worked at. The owner was selling it for I think $500. 14 or 15 year old me made my money back within a couple months burning games and music for everyone in my HS. Failed disks were a PAIN though - there goes $2 every time. I think years later I stuck it in a BackPack enclosure and sold it off for... I don't even remember.

[@Tamagotchiv45]

@@freakyfadge I think he shouldn't have tried to print an complex image behind his text, if it was just plain text it would have been more visible.

[@joshuadramsey]

I did a similar thing with a LightScribe drive. I felt this urge to preserve the spindle of LightScribe compatible discs I bought with it. I would only use the LightScribe for "special" discs. I still have about 60 of those 100 blank discs stored away in a box in some dark corner I haven't seen in almost a decade and probably won't see again for another decade. Most of the 40 I did use were at the end of my days using DVD-R media, and almost none had a "Scribed" label-side.

[@mattsboring]

Really appreciate the attention you pay to the captions! thanks for caring beyond the auto-generated ones.

[@Ni5ei]

Back then it was pretty common for audio CDs to be around 40 minutes so nearly half the disc was unused. I guess that's where the idea came from.

[@lukeisafinename]

Me: I can't decide if I want to buy a motorcycle, a musical instrument, some electronic hardware, or a tattoo. Yamaha: No matter what, I gotchu fam.

[@MysteriousFigure]

Just a note though, the motorcycle company is only loosely related through the brand name as the two split around the 50's

[@YoBGS]

Yes! Oddware gives me life! Something about just these kooky ideas that fit a need in theory but in practice just never came out fully baked... keep being awesome LGR!

[@RolloTonéBrownTown]

Glad you like it!

[@Megatog615]

I can actually imagine bands shipping limited edition CD albums with cool art that's intentionally hard to see.

[@ohareport]

there’s always something classy about a yamaha optical drive

[@joempoem478]

Very true

[@toohsas]

Classy as in useless.

[@Defy_Convention]

It's optically appealing I'll leave

[@colinstu]

those Plextor drives from the time always gave me goosebumps.

[@puciohenzap891]

@@colinstu Oh yess, Plextor audio writers...

[@Not-Great-at-Gaming]

It wasn't trying to set the world on fire... It just wanted to start a flame in your heart.

[@reeeeeeeeemmmmmmmmmm]

The thing I enjoyed most about this episode is seeing it

[@cool-person1161]

me writing an essay

[@Gildedtongue]

I must applaud the commitment to the "T@2" throughout the subtitles.

[@uubrmanx]

How to Make a CD Unusable: Chapter 3

[@hopingforthebest1.9]

Which comes after paper shredder in the first chapter and the microwave in the second I assume

[@uubrmanx]

@@hopingforthebest1.9 Actually, Chapter 1 is scribbling marker all over the bottom of a CD and Chapter 2 is getting the disc heavily scratched along with being shredded.

[@ThreeNinjaDucks]

My favorite lgr tradition breaking cd through old tech

[@tomyyoung2624]

@@ThreeNinjaDucks oh oh oh yes!!!!!

[@ZiptiesSimulations]

Came to just say I loved to pop out animation when he went from camera to the desktop capture.

[@twithnell]

When you need a tattoo on literally everything. Yamaha has you covered. You can't see it most of the time, but you have the peace of mind that you have wasted much needed storage space. lol

[@Superphilipp]

Whis is pretty much how most tattoos work.

[@toyfreaks]

I would have totally used this every time I burned a disc to "impress" the guys at the LAN party

[@Dr_McKay]

Im going on Limewire to download In_the_end.mp3.exe and you can’t stop me

[@JoelElRican]

Well, the FBI did 🤪

[@Charlesb88]

[Chorus] This is the end Beautiful friend This is the end My only friend, the end [Verse 1] Of our elaborate plans, the end Of everything that stands, the end No safety or surprise, the end I'll never look into your eyes again [Verse 2] Can you picture what will be? So limitless and free Desperately in need Of some stranger's hand In a desperate land... Today we lay to rest ⚰️ Mr. McKay 🪦 who went to Limewire 💾 and downloaded ⤵️ 🧑‍💻 a killer virus 🦠 that sucked him into his computer 💻 never to be seen from again. He is now the Ghost 👻 in the machine. Can’t say we didn’t warn ⚠️ him. Let us prey: Now I lay me computer down to sleep, I pray the RAM my data to keep, If The power should die before my computer should wake, I pray my UPS should kick In for a memory’s sake.

[@jibikart3828]

.exe?

[@Kalvinjj]

@@jibikart3828 That's the fun part! Also the ~400kB size sure as heck is legit. ...Guess I'll download the .AU version, that sure ain't a virus.

[@tomyyoung2624]

G: Yes do that!

[@MarioManTV]

Burning a LightScribe image on one side and a DiscT@2 on the other seems like prime Blurbs content.

[@MichaelJONeill333]

I wonder what the black memorex cd 💿 would have looked liked “tattooed”

[@stale2665]

Probably entirely invisible, as those CDs don't show any of the light refraction you usually get on the back of CDs, which is what this technology relies on.

[@nickwallette6201]

Yep. I had a few of those. It didn’t look any different after being burned, just like the PSX discs. The dye is opaque to visible light, but transparent to IR.

[@Intelwinsbigly]

Still sell black CDs...

[@MrSolveMYMaze]

Damn, I'm so relieved that I didn't spend my money on this back in the day. I put the money towards Gamecube games instead.

[@SirpixelAnimations]

GameCube? Bruh you are a CHAD

[@Shinntoku]

You know, this *could* be a cool thing for an easter egg in a music album release

[@TheRokkis]

Me: "Comic Sans Comic Sans Comic Sans!" LGR: "Hehe, we can go comic sans if you want." Me: " \o/ \o/ \o/"

[@Omegamario]

Now my Friday Afternoon in the UK has started with this fine LGR Oddware video. Many thanks sir and ooh, this is for sure something odd and I have never ever seen or heard of one of these before now

[@zachaliles]

I have no idea why or where it's coming from, but when you held the disc up to the light I had this fleeting nostalgic flashback to the early 2000's. It was just a sense of joy and a hint of a memory that I can't quite place.

[@KurbyDreamland1111]

Long time viewer, first time commenter. THANK YOU! You have been a light in my dark tunnel, you have given me the confidence to repair and build pc's. Long story short... Thank you LGR

[@nathanhamman418]

I'm a simple man, i see that clint uploaded oddware, and demand he upload more oddware.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Not to be outdone, Seagate introduced the HD T@ six months later, with about the same level of visibility.

[@petergplus6667]

Most often I overburned my CDs. I couldn't have used this feature ever.

[@Jeffmetal42]

Finally, I can properly label my 'TATU Greatest Hit' CD.

[@metallicarabbit]

WE'RE GONNA RIDE THE RACECARS!

[@KennethSorling]

Great. What're you gonna do with the other 600 MB of space?

[@CazRaX]

I liked their first album English and Russian versions...

[@SDGGames]

The best way to store your passwords! No one will ever think to look on the underside of your discs!

[@iana1641]

This feels like a rewards for waking up early. Please never change.

[@Splendorius]

If you wake up late you will be closer to next video

[@hueylong8046]

This is early for you?

[@leafbelly]

I think in the late '90s, early '00s, I had more "buffer underrun" coasters than actual burnt CDs.

[@DmitryLavrentev]

I'm surprised why Yamaha promoted this technology to home users, not a software publishers as a "anti-counterfeiting measure" or some other nonsense.

[@KiraSlith]

Nintendo used a variant of the tech for the Gamecube's DRM system known today as "BCA Marks".

[@DmitryLavrentev]

@@KiraSlith yes, I know. But DRM is another problem, I'm talking more about protecting the user from a counterfeit disc by a noticeable difference. Although it would probably even be possible to combine both options, what a human sees can also be read by a laser.

[@DmitryLavrentev]

@@apropripinquo I've seen StarForce, none of the DRM concepts seem crazy to me. 😄

[@InfernosReaper]

If I had a software company with one of those drives, I'd put the CD-key on it in case the user lost the case.

[@johndododoe1411]

At the time, Microsoft used CDs with holographic labels to prevent counterfeit disks being accepted by honest customers. Those labels were really hard to read and were soon abandoned.

[@LOVE-iv2pw]

I thought this was going to be something I remember from my childhood where you could print CD labels and stamp them onto CDs. Honestly that seems like a better option looking at this. At least the sticker won’t take up disc memory.

[@declanmar7]

Technology Connection mentioned this briefly in his LightScribe video, and the main thing I remember is how (rightfully) angry he was about the name.

[@sxistus]

Perfect transition between the filming the monitor and screen capture! 🤌(chef’s kiss)😘 amazing work, Clint!!

[@Charky_Creations]

This is like the alternate universe version of lightscribe and I'm here for it

[@danielwalker26]

20 years from now I can see you doing an oddware episode focusing on physical media.

[@spacedog12345]

Picture this: You get sent a CD-R with a case that says "shine this CD in the light." So you lift the CD over a light source, and etched into it is a freaking copypasta.

[@U014B]

Problem?

[@spacedog12345]

@@U014B Not at all! I just have more questions than answers, that's all. Like what font size should be used, and would one need to use multiple discs to get all of the copypasta on there? Sure something like "This is For Rachel" is shorter than, say, the Navy Seal copypasta, but it's still a bit long on its own, right?

[@spacedog12345]

Oh, and what if you could put mini-ASCII art on a disc! That'd be cool, too!

[@DaedalusYoung]

Etched into it is a QR code that links to a certain KZbin video.

[@phazonclash]

I loved burning CDs and DVDs back in the days. Despite all the awesome technologies we have today (flash storage, huge hard drives, cloud), burning CDs is one of the things I miss the most from the early 2000s. I still have my first ever CD-RW drive, an old Acer 4X

[@GeminiWoods]

I can see this being used as a secret means of communication for a drug cartel back in the early 2000's. Lol

[@tompinkerton8099]

@Max William Lauf Steganography.

[@caromac_]

@Max William Lauf Just shove it in a generic case and put some mp3s on it, perfect disguise.

[@onyx8231]

I remember around the mid 2000s that I wasn't able to see how much data had been written to CDs anymore. It was around the same time that CD's started failing their data verifications about 75% through. This happened in 3 different drives, using 3 different manufacturers of disks at every burning speed.. DVDs and CDRWs were always fine though, and you could clearly see how much of the disk was used as well. It's like they started using weaker burning lasers for CDRs when they started equipping them with DVD capabilities. I never could figure it out.

[@ptzzz]

Took me a while to get that the "DiscT@2" stands for Disc Tatoo when I was staring at the video title before watching the vid haha

[@Kalvinjj]

early 2000s cool/edgy tech marketing is a thing lost to time for sure

[@BlortBlart]

So, no one is going to talk about the smooth transition at 9:09!?

[@hylianarmy0]

It's not an LGR video without typing "FARTS" on something.

[@alameachan]

It's like the "bum" of Ashen's and Menski's fame.

[@From_A_Diverging_Timeline]

LGR your videos always bring me way back. Loved those memorex color cds. Used to burn music on them and thought they were so cool. Back when I still used diskmans. I was actually thinking about how they would turn out with the tattoo and you pulled them out! Good show 👏

[@RetroGamerBB]

Could it be used to "tattoo" the security ring on to burned sega saturn games?

[@cameronjenkins6748]

Now this is a question that needs to be answered.

[@RolloTonéBrownTown]

Abandonware piracy is a field that needs all the research it can get

[@renakunisaki]

I wonder about the burst cutting area on GameCube. Though that was DVD...

[@Mordaur]

This was researched long ago. Short answer, no.

[@cohearty12]

Yay! Oddware! Please please please do more in this series. It's what got me hooked on the channel originally! 😁

[@IvanovIvanAKrutoi]

(sees a disc tattooing drive) "Shut up and take my money!" (sees that it tattoos on the data side of the disc) "On second thought, give me my money back."

[@mrjoshmtz97]

Lol. That’s a good one!

[@Seatux]

I would have rather tried Lightscribe. Never got to use it back when.

[@Rando1975]

My thoughts exactly. When I saw the title, I thought, "that sounds really cool" and then Clint explained it tatoo's the data side. Then I thought "wait, what?! That's pretty useless"

[@jothain]

@@Seatux It's actually awesome. Really crisp graphics. I used it quite a bit and the end of optical media life when media prices got really affordable. Only downside was that it was insanely slow process to create disc filled with graphics.

[@Fadingfool]

Still have a USB external lightscribe drive. Think I have a couple of discs for it as well.

[@rarrawer]

I quite like these videos explaining old hardware, and appreciate all the detail you go to the effort of putting in. Thank you.

[@davidfl4]

Odds are my absolute favorite from among your series

[@rizmid]

I really loved the transition effect @ 9:08 it give a dramatic feel to your entertaining presentation anytime. A fan and an admirer from Pakistan!

[@Spewa-em8cm]

Those colored CD-Rs were the most interesting thing in this video, imagine wasting so much money back in the day on something this useless.

[@michealpersicko9531]

how? instead of having to flick through a box to find the cd you want just have everything color coordinated so you know orange can be for burning kusic blue could be for burning files red could be files for work/school. I think it could be very useful

[@Spewa-em8cm]

@@michealpersicko9531 I meant the CD drive is basically useless for the price, the colored discs are cool.

[@Slane583]

@@michealpersicko9531 I actually had a few of the colored cd-r's back in the day and I used them for music. A different color was a different mix/play list. I also had a couple of the tiny versions that Memorex made. Much easier to carry about as you could tuck them in your pocket but they didn't hold as many songs, obviously. My portable cd player was my iPod back in high school. Which I still have and works perfectly. :)

[@freedustin]

they were like $2 more than the generic looking discs.

[@Spewa-em8cm]

@@freedustin Again, I meant the CD drive is basically useless for the price, the colored discs are cool.

[@Trish_Carmichael]

Wow I didn't know about this gadget! Seeing you burning a cd with Nero sent me through a nostalgia trip!

[@TheInternetHelpdeskPlays]

Is it TWAIN over SCSI. Otherwise known as "Technology without an interesting name" over "System can't see it."

[@lonewretch]

yes and yes. they were really impressive with terms back in the day haha...

[@thedungeondelver]

"Datacide" sounds like a ca. 1994 DOS game with a (hackneyed) cyberpunk theme.

[@joeclarkey]

Mmm that CRT to full screen transition :D

[@thedopplereffect00]

If he made an entire video of how he did that, I would watch it.

[@zonderafspraak]

We had one of these drives back in the day, and yeah, you really needed to use the brilliant blue CD-Rs from Verbatim for it to look any good. The ones I used back then were even deeper blue than the type you used, Clint, and you could definitely it much better.

[@jiface]

Love having more Clint on camera. Charisma out the wazooo

[@legitimatelemons]

Off work for the weekend, AND there's a new Oddware video? Fantastic!

[@hearnia2k]

This would be amazing to hide clues in an escape room!

[@Daijyobanai]

the idea with escape rooms is that you eventually escape, so this wouldn't work because t@2 doesn't work. If you want skeletons in an escape room, this would be ideal.

[@matth.imaging8952]

I still have one of these CRW-F1 drives in one of my PCs, the internal ATA version. The PC still has Windows XP SP3 with the Nero 5 software on it, so everything is full functional. In the time that software was distributed on CD-R media to customers, the drive was used to put the software name, release number and the company logo as a kind of watermark on the CD with the Disc T@2 feature. This worked quite well. We got comments from customers who found it looked very cool. Now, as you discovered, the type of dye used on de CD-R makes a lot of difference. In the early days, cyanine was used. This is a blue dye. Since most CD-R were copper coloured, the dye looked green. When they switched to silver coloured CD-Rs, the dye looked of course blue. Disc T@2 works quite well with these CD-Rs. This type of dye is however not so stable on the long run, causing the dreaded "CD Rot", specially on the el-cheapo CD-Rs. Around 2000 Mitsui started to use pthalocyanine. This dye has a very light green colour and is far more stable than cyanine. Other manufacturers switched to this dye as well over time. This type of dye is bad for using with Disc T@2, as it has almost no contrast. This is the dye you used on the CD-R where the Disc T@2 was almost invisible. The Azo dye you also tested is a lot darker and has more contrast and works reasonably well with Disc T@2, similar to the cyanine dye. Basically, if you can clearly see the part of the CD-R that is used by the data, then Disc T@2 will work fine as well on that type of CD. Otherwise forget it. Disc T@2 was an idea with limited use to begin with. An alternative to the dreaded stickers you could print and stick to the label side. Lightscribe was something similar. In the end, printable CDs that has a label side that you can print on with an inkjet printer made all these techniques obsolete.

[@alpacathunderproductions5412]

Its Friday. I've got my coffee, and there's a new Oddware video? Perfect.

[@TylerMcVicker1]

It didn’t work, but damn, I want it.

[@offspringfan89]

You here?

[@busterbunny005]

Omg, it's that valve news making guy

[@fen4554]

It did work. You really need stock from the era because the dye is a deep blue or purple.

[@rommix0]

Love how LGR cracks up at the end. That drive really is nothing but a joke.

[@RetroTechBytes]

A tattooing CD drive is something I never thought I’d hear of, but this is so freaking cool! And SO 90s! I love it! The comic sans got me good too! Either way, thanks for the really fun and interesting video Clint!

[@CoreyDWillis]

Clint completely losing it at the end is what I needed today. 😂

[@BankstonSkooma]

Your volume icon-only system tray is so satisfying.

[@matt4193]

Imagine if CD serials came using this technology

[@Kalvinjj]

Heck you could actually do it far better on pressed CDs, I have some here that you can see absurdly clearly the end of the audio data. ...the only problem is you having to know the serial before putting it into the drive

[@djdjukic]

I still have a copy of, I think, Windows 7 Beta, that I burned myself, with the serial number burned into the data side with LabelFlash.

[@BigRaab]

Oh man! I thought I was the only person to ever own one of these! I distinctly remember thinking "This is the future, just look at that blue read/write LED!"

[@MRooodddvvv]

I remember back in late 90's early 00's CD-R was almost as dark as DVD and amount of data written was very obvious. Would work fine with those i guess.

[@the_kombinator]

I know what you mean - I can't recall the brand name though.

[@nickwallette6201]

Yep. This came out just as the lighter dyes were taking over. Just bad timing really.

[@daniilkolpakov2004]

Verbatim, Matsushita.

[@crypteauxcajun2049]

Yes i had an iomega zip cd 4x. Very dark burns

[@greggv8]

Cyanine dye with a "gold" reflective layer that light wouldn't shine through gave them a very dark green appearance. The very first CD-R I burned was one of those and I still have it. Old CD-ROM drives like the 1x Mitsumi drive that had the whole inside slide out with a lid to lift up could read it, despite them supposedly not being capable of reading CD-R.

[@Corianas_]

Thank you. I remember reading magazines about it, and always wondered how it actually performed.

[@Charlesb88]

The “reverse” of this technology, the LightScribe burner drive, makes sense since that allows you to burn an label image on the label side of special LightScribe CD-R/DVD-R discs, even if the technology never really caught on. This however does not make sense to me why you’d want this. But I guess they were just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

[@Torbjorn.Lindgren]

As mentioned in the video Lightscribe was developed 2 years later and required special (and initially fairly expensive) media.

[@Charlesb88]

@@Torbjorn.Lindgren yes, I know. I have a LightScribe burner drive. This tech while interesting just doesn’t seem useful enough to have been worth the effort.

[@Aevilbeast]

@@Charlesb88 and that's why they stopped making them within a year of releasing it. No one found the feature to be useful in any capacity. IMO, Even the LightScribe technology while much better implemented than T@2, was pretty much useless, mainly because of the special CD-R's you needed tend to be quite a bit more expensive than regular cd-r's and it really wasn't that hard or inconvenient to label discs the "old-fashioned" way to begin with. But I guess if money was no concern, and since it didn't take up any of the limited data space like t@2 did, it was probably fun to mess around with and cool way to make a generic burned cd look a bit more unique.

[@Goattongue]

"NOT the label side.........the DATA side..." Me: *shifting comfortably in my chair* Ooh man. This is gonna be good.

[@GTAManRCR]

I think it corrupts data on the CD

[@cblizz730]

I had one of these back in the day. I used to put pictures of me on the disc that look like a hologram off of a credit card.

[@Dukefazon]

I was retrobrighting my old PC my older brother bought after the Amiga500, I did a thorough cleaning of it inside and outside and the whole time I was thinking about The8BitGuy and LGR. It turned out great! This machine still works and it's more than 20 years old.

[@Scott-ym2wj]

You should do a DVD release of all your episodes, for posterity.

[@taitaisanchez]

If I owned this back in the day there’s a 100% chance I’d have had a DJ Goatse Man and his funky jams disc