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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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...

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

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.

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(?)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Lmao I wondered what happened to Hawkwind post-Lemmy

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.

Love the topic you chose. This video was interesting

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

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. ^^

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S-z5nUEfbj4.html

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.

Elvira was indeed huge.

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

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

pretty nifty stuff very insightful

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

And now we wait for Larry...

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!

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.

I love information society

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

This is like video games part 2

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

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

Nice video

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have to know what that Shakin Stevens game is like is it a fuckin home improvement game lmao

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

Why are you hiding Behind a cardboard box

LARRY WHERE ARE YOU

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

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".