Oddity Archive: Episode 144 - Laserdisc, Vinyl & Cassette Computer Programs

[@Larry]

Aw, dude, you should have told me you were making this, I'd have suggested the BBC's rival network ITV with their ITV Data Base series, they played full game programs over their end credits. Also occasionally interactive stuff live on air.

[@wacotablet1055]

Like a clockwork

[@BlackFlagHeathen]

And there he is.

[@jackkraken3888]

Is that a problem?

[@maxwelsh6121]

@@jackkraken3888 it is actually. Wouldve greatly enriched the video.

[@hjalfi]

If you go to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, near London, they have not just one but _several_ Domesday setups which you can get your grubby paws all over. And they're lovely people (they will let you play Chuckie Egg on their BBC Micro setup for as long as you like). Fun fact: LV-ROM still pictures were analogue. Each one was a single frame of laserdisk video. The computer data was stored in the PCM audio track.

[@ChrisJohnson-te3eg]

I remember being absolutely amazed at the Domesday project as a 6 year old at the time. The science museum in my town had one of the machines set up as an interactive display for visitors to look at. My dad took me there to see it. I remember looking at a map of where I lived and information about the town. Thought it would be so cool to have this sort of thing at home! Good memories.

[@yorgle]

The Information Society album "Peace and Love, Inc." referenced at 14:15 was not a ZX Spectrum program, but rather just audio from a 300 baud modem transmission. (I made an adapter back then to hook up my Amiga's phone to my CD player to decode it. :D)

[@Redspl]

Nice episode, Ben! I wasn't aware about these laserdisc releases nor i heard about software on vinyl. Fun fact: in 80s in Poland there was a radio transmission on some widely-available station that worked just like thiese BBC ones, just for commercial software that you couldn't get behind the steel curtain. If I'm correct it was named Radiokomputer, and it was transmitted late at night on weekends(?)

[@luisreyes1963]

Fun Fact: Data East of Japan made an arcade game system that ran on cassettes.

[@emolovetree]

Luis Reyes special odd sized cassettes that failed on read a decent amount and couldn't be backed up cause of the non-standard size. Now a days it might be possible to rip out the drive and replace it with a normal size and put the tape using some leader onto an normal empty shell but at that point why not desoder the drive and use something like an iPod with wavs of the games to load them. It was a cool idea and prevented piracy but owners hated it and data east converted the most popular games to a normal board

[@Theshadowsnose]

We had software broadcast over TV over here in Germany as well. The TV show 'WDR Computer Club" has broadcast computer data to record onto tape at the end of each episode. Later in the mid '80s they used a process similar to teletext, but within the visual picture. It was called 'Videodat' and was later developed into a commercial service providing shareware and drivers. I remember watching that show (religiously) but I never tried to record the audio to tape and I never built that Videodat decoder.

[@H8twoluz]

Theshadowsnose That's some ole school... Remember when 1 meg memory cards were $60,000.00... And they used violatible memory chips all with hand wired connections.. Not soldiered ... @SilentWatchDiv Security through Technology

[@Theshadowsnose]

That's even older than me ;-) I remember that we had an enormous Hard Drive at the company where I did my apprenticeship back in the days. We kept it as a spare because one customer still used that ancient system and refused to upgrade to a newer one. Enormous in physical size, not in storage capacity ;-)

[@LemSportsinterviews]

hey man. love ur channel (:

[@RickinBaltimore]

Cassette based software was here in the US, somewhat at least. I had a Datasette for the Commodore 64, and had a few games on tape for it.

[@FrankChickens]

Thanks for doing an episode (which was enjoyable and interesting) about our neck of the woods, Ben! The man on the picture on the box is Ian McNaught-Davis who was the presenter of Micro Live. The Stranglers also included a computer program for the ZX Spectrum on the UK tape version album 'Aura Sculpture'. It was called 'Aural Quest' and daresay it was of the level of other music artists computer games that were around at the time. The BBC chose Laserdisc over CD-ROM for the Domesday Project as at the time CD-ROM was rather an unknown quantity so they went with the format that was readily available. Micro Live was a great show for its time and although could be a bit dry at times was always interesting. My favourite memory from the show (after the Prince Philip hacking incident) was of a lady who chose a Commodore PET in which to run her sweet shop. There were other shows around at the time such as 4 Computer Buffs and The Magic Micro Mission which was aimed at children but Micro Live was the most prominent out of these shows.

[@OddityArchive]

Ian McNaught Davis on the box was no accident. The shows of his I watched were really helpful and I wanted to give him a little extra nod.

[@maboroshi1986]

did the old lady (phyllis was her name i think) not have a PET? the TRS-80 wasn't that big in the UK. i think she was on the computer programme (a precursor series to micro live focused on computing in general)

[@FrankChickens]

I think you may be right as it was a while ago since I last saw it.

I live in the UK as well and I really did love Micro Live. I thought Ian was very dry too, but Fred Harris made it watchable. At least he tried to crack a few one-liners. I loved it. The UK was, to me, the cutting edge in technology back then, when SIr Clive Sinclair made the ZX Spectrum, (also known as The Pregnant Calculator,) Dragon Data making the Dragon 32/64 the Dragon 32 was my first computer,) and the Amstrad CPC 464 (My favourite of the 3 even though I never had a colour monitor.) With its poor sound and graphics, the Speccy may of been a low spec machine, but was way more entertaining than the C64 and, at the time, the price was less than half that of the C64 (well, here in the U.K. at any rate,). The Speccy had much better basic than the C64 too, and having the one key for basic commands (instead of having to type in the whole word,) was pure genius. I loved my speccy at the time and still use an emulator for it to this day. OK, the C64 had better sound and graphics, but was not worth the extra expense. We had computers over here and the States had games consoles. I guess that speaks for itself. Thanks for the video, Benjamin!

[@JoeScaramanga]

My school had the Domesday Project set up. God knows where they got the money from as the place was crumbling round our ears! The best thing I remember about it was a prototype Google Street View where you could 'walk around' a town via a series of still photos.

[@louiseogden1296]

Tape user here from the UK -- on our BBC Micro. I was envious of my school, which used floppy disks, and got into very hot water when my dad upgraded to an Amstrad with a floppy drive and I went all mediaeval on his disk drives (being curious but ultimately inept). That was 1990 and it was about 1996 when I finally got computer privileges back on any of his machines. Certainly was my own version of Domesday...

[@kristina80ification]

The PC Engine is not the name of an add on for the TG-16, it's the name of the same system in Japan, much like the NES is known as the famicom in Japan. Also I am not aware of any Laserdisc addons for it, though there is an add on for the Laseractive that adds PC-Engine technology to it that was then used to play certain laseractive games. (the laseractive was a very strange beast and how it worked was very odd, I couldn't begin to explain it here.). As an aside, the MSX also had laserdisc games, from 1984 and onward, though I don't think they used LV/LD-Rom as they used standard laserdisc video players, probably just a program that was loaded though an audio track instead along with the video. Anyhow, despite the error, nice episode, nice to see stuff like this being covered, data on analogue formats is an odd interest of mine.

[@maxwelsh6121]

Excellent correction and info. Tiny addition, and I'm sure you already know this but the part you left out , the laseractive had basically a slot loading exchangeable module system one was a sort of microphone preamp for karaoke, which it's possible I'm confusing with another machine, and it definitely had both Sega and NEC modules available separately that could be plugged in non simultaneously, basically their respective 16-bit systems on a card and then you would play their respective software discs

[@Robdeltonie]

You should have said, "Join us next time when I attempt to transmit a computer program via KZbin for you to decode at home for a chance at a prize! I can only imagine how many entries we're going to receive!!"

[@copperhamster]

The problem I ran into with downloading cassette data was at some point someone mp2 or mp3'd more than a few of them and ... that's bad. Really really bad. I own the Bermuda Triangle Album. It was also pink. An interesting thing about cassettes in Europe, in almost every European country, blank media such as tapes had a tax. (a copyright tax). Floppies also were being taxed at the same flat (non-percentage) rate and relative to production cost the tax was much much higher. Another cute thing is in the Apple //e if you flipped a certain bit in the system you could save data twice as fast and get twice as much on a cassette as you could normally... IF you used a stereo cassette deck. Even today, ham radio operators use a variety of methods to transmit data in the form of audio over AM, FM, and SSB, mainly APRS. A really odd thing for the Apple // series had a special (3rd party) device that plugged into an imagewriter or imagewriter // printer, (only those) and it could scan something that looked like a stretched QR code to bring data into the computer. Several magazines that included basic programs and such would often include a page for you to tear out and run through the printer. Also, the same software could print things onto paper using the normal print cartridge. My friend had an adapter and software that plugged into his VCR and used it to backup his hard drive to. The biggest problem was you could not have an autotracking VCR which started coming out about the time the device was made. It would have intermittent 'adjust tracking' screens for you to manually sync it, and then when it went to data an auto tracker would go nuts.

[@jameslaidler4259]

Copper Hamster Sounds like PCM encoder/decoders right before DAT came out.

[@iamnomad101]

Say, was your friend's backup system a Danmere Backer? LGR did a video on that not too long ago.

[@copperhamster]

I looked up what I could find on that, I don't think it was that exact unit, but the idea is similar. My friend was using an Amiga, not a PC. Though it might have been an Amiga version of the same device. I've slept since then so I don't remember. -.^

[@Aquatarkus96]

When I was a small child, I used to have to go with my father to his office while he did IT related stuff that he couldn't do on our 5 year obsolete computer. At the end of the day he would always back up his work to cassette and it would take what felt like an hour or 2. In that time I sat on his lap while he read news groups and played Quake and Diablo 2. So cassettes are a very nostalgic and warm thing even though I do understand the frustration with the loading times.

[@jakethreesixty]

Lmao I wondered what happened to Hawkwind post-Lemmy

[@SampleScienceSounds]

Very interesting episode, I didn't know Laserdisc-rom existed. If it wasn't for the price, I think it would have been a success. I wish I could browse that first LD-rom! :D

[@ridbensdale]

It's worth mentioning that the Domesday Disc could also run on a RM Nimbus 186. That's how our school did it ☺

[@kkatmartin1]

Love the topic you chose. This video was interesting

[@artfoundry4855]

Good episode! I never knew that you could store computer programs on vinyl records of all things. Also, a little correction. The "PC Engine" you're referring to would be called the "Turbografx CD" add-on. PC Engine is the Japanese name for the Turbografx 16. Just thought I'd let you know. ^^

[@OfficialDJUnikittyYT]

I have been watching the Oddity Archive for the first time. I never know you can use laser discs to run apps. :)

[@hjalfi]

Mainland Europe went in for radio transmission of computer programs in a big way --- go look up Basicode: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE. It allowed the same program to run on multiple different types of computer (which was quite a feat of engineering). Transmissions ran from about 1980 to 1992. It was used a little in the UK, but pretty much sank without trace; but here's an episode of BBC Radio 4's _The Chip Shop_ featuring a Basicode program. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iV7dZqGLesuVoJY

[@carlklitzke9455]

Cool stuff. Never thought that using records would be a thing. Wish I had a source for this but I thought I once heard of a pirate radio station in the Eastern Bloc that would broadcast zx spectrum games, or something like that.

[@richardthefox3412]

The famicom also had a cassette data recorder in Japan from 1984

[@sawbonesquad4876]

man, im just gonna go back and watch the teletext episode because its one of the most strangely nostalgic eps you did.

[@Wallyworld30]

I have had 2 computers with the cassette drive. One was built into the unit a Coleco ADAM Comuter and I'd never had a cassette fail to load. The other was a TI 99/4A with a separate cassette drive similar to that setup you have for your commodore and It failed more than it succeeded to load. Shouldn't more computers have incorporated the cassette drive into the system? I imagine it was a cost saving measure but if the reliability that was from less than half to basically 100% it seems like an easy choice.

[@josephgioielli]

At that time most people already had a cassette recorder at home. Crappy as they were, there were very common. We just used the one we had when we got the TI99

[@djmajiktuch82]

Haha! That sounded like the dial up connection for the internet back in the day

[@dogwomble]

Very similar concept in a way - both old-school modems and old cassette drives worked by converting the digital signal to or from a series of tones that could be used on the analogue medium that was either the cassette tape or the phone line. So in that sense they will sound very similar.

[@tylerrip11]

Hey! Would you be interested checking an AM tube radio with the Civil Defense logos on the dial? Also it's plaid :D

[@JackLongbridge]

Elvira was indeed huge.

[@diecarro79]

Bryan Braddock You have piqued my interest. I mean... The game loads a lot mid-game from the floppy disk (at least from what I've seen on an emulator): when going to a new location, when an enemy appears, etc. How can that even work with a tape version? Or are we referring to the arcade game, not the adventure/RPG one?

[@GP1138]

I think you've missed the point of Bryan Braddock's comment there.

[@diecarro79]

GP1138 Oh! 😂

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

Trivia: one of the members of the Thompson Twins is a little like a "doctor, doctor" now -- a hypnotherapist in LA.

[@shadowtheoblivious]

pretty nifty stuff very insightful

[@tarstarkusz]

Tape drives are not inherently slow. The phone system, which was vastly inferior to cassettes maxed out at 33kb/s without special equipment, which could only raise it to 56k theoretically. Commodore's tape algorithm is terrible. It writes every single byte twice. It also has an extremely conservative bitrate, far under what it is capable of. To give you an idea, my Atari 2600 can load a 16k rom from cassette in about 20 seconds. Though the cart was made in the late 90s early 2000s, there was a simular device from 82 or 83 which can load 6k in as fast as about 8 seconds. There were turbotape programs for the C64 which substantially improved the speed. In some cases, the turbo tape programs could load and save data faster than a disk drive.

[@iamoutofideas1]

would you ever do an episode on early internet (usenet, gopher holes, etc)?

[@Wallyworld30]

You think for there promo material they would have wiped all those fingerprints off that Laserdisc. Haha that this is disgusting.

[@tanookitoad979]

Hate to nitpick but the PC engine wasn't the add-on, that's the Japanese version of the turbografix-16, you're talking about the CD add on.

[@neilforbes416]

The label(shown at 14:30 if freeze-framing) of the Pete Shelley album is an Australian issue, pressed and distributed by Festival Records Ltd.

[@Losaru]

Had cassette for my C64, but didn't know about laserdisc and vinyl

[@ViewpointProd]

Bout 3 weeks ago, both discs and the LD player (along with the needed parts) was being sold on ebay

[@gfreely]

Ah yes, the hell we called 'tape drives'. My 1st three computers had them until I upgraded to floppies: C64 (which you covered), and Tandy CoCo I & II. Until I got the floppy drives, almost all my games were on ROM Packs. My first 5.25 game: the epic (at that time!) Zork!

[@JGibbons513]

9:35 LOL, seriously, I think we really do need an Impatient Computer User Society. I'd join.

[@ryanmccauslin7578]

My father bought a TI-99/a back when they came out (1982?) had the data cassette. He still have both, and I can tell you it's a weird system, in comparison to today's computers. And if you put one of those data-filled cassettes in a standard cassette player, you get some weird noises LOL

[@alsatusmd1A13]

In theory, it would have been possible to record data on videocassettes. But, for the most part, it would have been just as impractical to actually do it that way as were doing it on laserdiscs and vinyl since common videocassettes and the decks used to record and play them are physically so large, just like laserdiscs, laserdisc players and many models of turntables.

[@artistwithouttalent]

And now we wait for Larry...

[@MY5TCrimson]

Ugh.

[@BlackFlagHeathen]

I LITERALLY CAME TO THE COMMENT SECTION TO FIND HIS COMMENT

[@BlackFlagHeathen]

FIRST COMMENT IS HIM

[@ViewpointProd]

no one cares mate, stop waiting for others and watch minotte's fucking content

[@WAQWBrentwood]

I was a US user of the Timex / Sinclair 2068 (itself an upgraded ZX Spectrum ) I certainly used tape, often a Radio Shack Universal 505 (a Radio Shack import of a 5"inch JVC mono reel to reel) because, what's the fun of computer tape if it's not reel to reel! Me and a couple of my more nerdy friends actually contemplated sending programs via CB, we never did. it likely wouldn't have worked, and it would also have likely pissed off the FCC, But it was 1984 and we at least thought of it! -Sent via a wireless Radio/computer in my damned pocket, LOL!

[@gamblincabbie9505]

Benny benny benny.... Any late 70s/80s computer could use cassettes, but in the US we did a lot more of disc as they had accessiblity vs cassette use. Remember Im just down I29 if u need help!

[@Tornado1994]

6:30. Hey Ben, are you referring to LD-ROM itself here or the Encoded Whitebook software of LD-ROM? Because NEC PC Engine CD did not use LD ROM nor was it compatible with it. It did however use Greenbook,because Sony and Philips made Greenbook the Standard for CD-ROM in 1988 and NEC had already licensed their own CD ROM masters. ALL CD-ROM used Greenbook Software packaging and encoding until SEGA Saturn in 1994. SEGA had Hitachi,JVC and MIPS program a special Software package Catalog for Saturn's Uniquely pressed and printed CD ROM discs. The Letterbooking was codenamed "Sophia" or simply "Bluebook". Also, PC Engine/TurboGraphix was compatible with Pioneer LaserActive or "Pioneer/SEGA Earth"(which was initially planned as a Laser Disc Add on for Mega Drive before SEGA decided to go with a CD add on, Mega CD/Sega CD/Sega Earth which uses a Basic Package called Terabook which is DRM encrypted Mega Drive/Genesis SDK software and Middleware)via add on Module.

[@ClaireClown7]

Tornado1994 The TurboGrafx-16 CD/PC-Engine CD-ROM² did not use White Book (CDi Bridge). It predated the standard by 3-4 years (the system released in Japan in 89 and 90 in the us while White Book debuted in 93). In addition not every console used Green Book (CD-i). The CD-ROM² used a raw type format while Sega/Mega CD discs used standard ISO9660 encoding. 3DO used a proprietary CD format. The only real thing to use CD-i was the CD-i itself.

[@neilforbes416]

The BBC's first HUGE mistake was in choosing Philips to make ANYTHING in connection with their product, when they had EMI's, PYE's and Decca's electronics divisions to choose from, either one FAR SUPERIOR to Philips' crap.

[@jamesbennettmusic]

Neil Forbes didn't EMI buy Decca (and sell off much of their inventory) by then?

[@neilforbes416]

+James Bennett: Decca got swallowed up into the Polygram empire as far as the recording side went. As to the electronics side, I think both EMI and Decca were getting out of that side of their respective businesses because they were perhaps finding it hard to keep up the competition against cheaper(and in some cases, nastier) Asian-made product.

[@rricci]

I distinctly remember paying $40US fir a 10 pack of floppies in the 80s

[@meetoo594]

Codemasters put out a cd 0f a bunch of their games with an included dongle that plugged into the audio out of a home cd player and into a sinclair spectrums joystick port and acted like a dac, pumping binary data through the pins that were then decoded and run by a tiny loader program. Loading was very fast compared to tape but unfortunately the games collection was a bit crap and not many got sold. Rainbow arts also did something similar for the c64. This wasnt cd-rom, it was just an audio disk with highly compressed waveforms representing computer code like a very large and fast tape. You had to manually play the track for whatever game you wanted which output audio to the dac. Pity it went nowhere as it was a very innovative solution for stuff like multiload games and compilations. As an aside, some of my work is on the domesday projects community disk, it was a description of country life in the very rural area i lived at the time. It got picked from a pool of essays pupils could submit to the project. The machine our school had got stolen very quickly so i never got to see it in person. Pity you cant view it due to various copyright and privacy laws.

[@tarstarkusz]

Your dataset needs a new belt. That is almost certainly the problem.

[@petroklaxis]

The PC Engine was the Japanese version of the TurboGrafx, not an addon.

[@imrustyokay]

I love information society

[@MrGhostown81]

Wow! Techmoan is a Patreon donor. Do I smell Crossover?

[@chadpenny7890]

Use the app. Tapdancer. Accompanied with turbo load cartridge. 1 minute load time. It's a God send.

[@macronsilverauttparchive168]

This is like video games part 2

[@betaman7988]

YES! AN AMERICAN WHO SAYS ZX SPECTRUM RIGHT! YES!

[@AnOfficialAndrewFloyd]

Betaman ZEE EKS

[@betaman7988]

ZED ECKS. British pronunciation for a British designed and produced home computer!

[@Fluteboy]

Rubber keys and rotten leads RAND and RUN and LOAD and screens Then five minutes fingers crossed, hoping not to witness the terror Of R: TAPE LOADING ERROR

[@betaman7988]

Very nice!

[@katej.velvet4609]

Half a giga on a freaking laser disc was quite a lot of space back in the late 70s 80s I mean half a g Is basically like 200 3 inch floppy like 30000 5 inch and maybe a million and a half 7 inch floppy

[@weasel2htm]

At 3:00 Did I just see part of The Intersect?

[@AndyEinstman]

Nice video

[@ninjamaster3453]

I mean to sound boorish, but are the graphical representation of the band in that game all standing naked with erections?

[@hubzcaps]

Pcm data on a record.....now ive seen everyrhing

[@vwestlife]

It's FSK, not PCM.

[@AnOfficialAndrewFloyd]

Voyager's Golden Records contain digital image data encoded as audio. One guy figured out how to decode it and has a video on KZbin.

[@tag4650]

I read this as "Porn data"

[@diddles2008]

Ah, you missed BASICODE which was broadcast at something like 12.20am on BBC Radio 4

[@Fluteboy]

Well done on getting yourself to say "Zed Ex". Just have to pretend you are Canadian eh!

[@nicholsjoshua15]

"Making the most of the Micro" that's what all of Kim Jong Un's lovers say

[@MrMeow-dk2tx]

LARRY WHERE ARE YOU

[@mattlovell4213]

Why are you hiding Behind a cardboard box

[@adrienfourniercom]

Who the f* were the Tompson twins? I suppose they were famous in britain for two month in 84

[@ajogg]

If you're asking a serious question. The Thompson Twins had several hits here in the US as well as the UK, they even played Live Aid in 1985. Their album Into the Gap sold 5 million copies in the US. Their hit singles are Lies, Hold Me Now, Doctor Doctor, Lay your hands on Me, King for just one Day, etc. Popular from about 1983-1986 or so.

[@adrienfourniercom]

I just finish to hear every one of the songs you wrote in the list and, no, they are unknown in France. Never heard of them, by name or by music, they may be didn't catch on here. Or may be they were not aired on radio during this time, who knows? Thanks for the answer anyway.

[@ajogg]

They were huge here in the US when I started high school. I guess they got popular in the US and UK, maybe not many other places. Have a good day.

[@weasel2htm]

A little late to the party here, but they had a song called "In The Name Of Love" on the soundtrack to the 1984 movie "Ghostbusters."

[@ajogg]

I remember that one as well.

[@neilforbes416]

This is a world first here: It's the FIRST time an AMERICAN has EVER named the last letter of the alphabet CORRECTLY, even if only for the purpose of this video. The correct name of "Z" is, "ZED", not "ZEE".

[@vwestlife]

Actually zee was one of several pronunciations of Z in use in England long before the American colonies declared independence (along with zad, zard, ezod, izzard, and uzzard). In our quest to simplify and improve the English language, Americans just happened to standardize on the easiest-to-rhyme proununciation, while the Brits standardized on zed, despite it totally screwing up the ending of the Alphabet Song.

[@neilforbes416]

VWestlife: We Australians inherited the language we speak directly from its source, as such we have always said "Zed" when naming the last letter of the alphabet. As for America simplifying and improving(?) English, more like corrupting the language, when viewed from the perspective of a country which inherited English in its unadulterated form.

[@vwestlife]

A former penal colony claiming to be "unadulterated" -- that's funny!

[@neilforbes416]

VWestlife: I wouldn't laugh too loudly if I were you! America's beginnings were very similar to Australia's. Foundation by Britain's rejects! The only variance is about two centuries of timespan.

[@vwestlife]

A much bigger variance is that we fought a war for our independence, and won.