The 1987 CD-ROM Experience: Hitachi CDR-1503S 

Hitachi: THIS LASER CAN KILL YOU Lgr: N E A T

This guy is definitely not a regular RU-vidr. He is operating a tech museum from his home, rescues historical computer pieces from around the world and even puts an archive of seemingly lost in time software online. What a champ, what a saint!

"The only thing more exciting than obsolete media is even more obsolete obsolete media." That is pretty much the mission statement of this channel right there.

“ nice velvety strips for cds to lounge on, before being mounted inside. “ did the cds at least get dinner first?

No time for sleep! Must learn about a 33 year old piece of technology that I'll never own!

"there wasn't even a copy of this online" well i hope... "There is _now_ " Yesssss. Not only do we get awesome interesting videos of the stuff you get, but it gets documented and archived so nicely. Love this channel and your work!

I love how the game "Adventure" is under Strategy, and not Adventure.

Slaps roof of Hitachi: This bad boy has a laser that can kill ya

Hey, my wife loves Hitachi products!

I love that intro, it’s so smooth, buttery, beautiful and welcoming!

I found that phone directory CD far too amusing. Funnily enough, when you were in the K's I saw a radio station listed. Looking them up they still have the same address and phone number as listed on the CD !

He entered the casino and went straight for the black jack tables. Sat down, placed his chips and an aged piece of electronics over the table. Before the inquisitive glances of the other players he only said: "Lucky CD-ROM"

I love how you reviewed the fastest CD-ROM drive and also the slowest CD-ROM drive

Hooking my first CD ROM drive up to my Amiga 1200 circa 1995 was completely mind blowing. I suddenly had access to more software on a single magazine cover disc than my entire previous collection.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="370">6:10</a> Techmoan: Did someone say belt?

Take a moment to respect the Microsoft workers who typed in all the data for the CD.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="315">5:15</a> "If you like quadrilaterals..." SOLD

I had to Frame-By-Frame <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="920">15:20</a> to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Thanks for that.

LGR: "There weren't that many games available" Also LGR: Here's this CD with 250 Games on it! ;)

I love CDs. The sounds that it makes is so cool. The whoosh of it spinning up, and the little clicks of it reading the disc.

LGR installs extensive reference library. First use: looking up definition of fart.

In 1989, our campus bulletin board system at Oregon Institute of Technology had 4 of these- each with a different shareware disc permanently installed, allowing us students to download all sorts of things over the on campus phone lines to the dorm.

I love the fact that Clint still gets excited over retro tech after all this time and all the videos.

I love seeing all this old tech, it makes me super nostalgic for my childhood. Thank you LGR for sharing this!

This was out at the same time as the Commodore 64 and Apple IIc. That's just mind-blowing

I'm in awe of the graphic design on that '87 Microsoft CD. It's virtually indistinguishable from the design they were using for optical media well into the noughties. I'm not talking about premium optical media that might have a holographic surface, but your mundane mouse driver or service pack CDs really did look like that for a long time.

Ah, the good old days of CD-ROM drives that had a dedicated volume adjuster. Some even had a button to skip to the next track of an audio CD, and could play even while in MS-DOS or even in the CMOS menus.

I absolutely love how the focus was on the drive, but you also gushed over MS Bookshelf... 🤣 That's why I love your channel.

I love old CD drives, I remember when a computer having a CD-ROM drive was like having a state-of-the-art add on!

The 1st time I realized how CD-ROMs were amazing technology was when I went to the HS Library ~1993 (which at my school [a college prep school], rivaled most town libraries) and was able to access the entire encyclopedia (Encarta) with the ability to search - periodical books were just given their pink slip

Love your channel so much ❤️ Thank you for doing what you do. 😊 So interesting seeing this kinda stuff!

I love that you take the time and make the effort to put stuff on the Internet Archive, making it available with everyone. Thanks a lot! This is truly invaluable.

I remember when we got our first CD-ROM drive for the family 386. It was an internal drive that came in a pack with a sound card of some kind. It used this weird interface with a super skinny data ribbon cable which I haven't come across since. Used even fewer pins than the Sony interface on some of the SB16 cards. Definitely a lot fewer pins than the huge connectors on that drive! It wasn't a caddy drive, but the tray wasn't motorised either. You had to push in the tray and it would pop out, then you could pull it the rest of the way out. My dad didn't know much about computers, and I was just a kid, so we had no idea you had to load drivers to make it work. But I did figure out that you could get it to play an audio CD if you pressed the volume knob on the front. That made my dad very happy, because the only reason he bought it was so he could play a music CD he bought. Eventually we got some help to load the drivers and get it working, we also got the sound card working, but that took longer I think because it wasn't a common one like a sound blaster. Really wish I knew what the drive and sound card were, I'd love to re-build that machine the same as when I was a kid. I'd love to relive the memory of playing games on that machine.

1987, when a rectangle could win a design award

Such a great vid! My first experience with a CDROM (besides lusting after it in Computer Shopper) was the Encyclopedia Brittanica multimedia disc demo in my local computer shop. My mind was blown! Honest to goodness video on a computer! Still get warm fuzzies thinking about those early computing days!

I've yet to find another RU-vidr that does what you do! Its original! Love seeing old tech getting attention in 2020, I love what you do here on RU-vid!

“Nice velvety strips for CDs to lounge on before getting mounted inside.” - Clint 2020

“Voyager 2 Images of Uranus” made me laugh and I hate myself for it.

I am always grateful that you can retrieve information from the disks, thank you!

I love your channel, the very nice jazz music, old tech and your golden voice. Keep it up cheers from The Netherlands.

Someone has to make this bumper sticker... "I'M A BALLER OF A COMPUTER USER"

I really like that new intro it's so smooth and good looking

I love watching these as i relax before bed, his choice of lounge music and his calming voice chill me out and an added benifit... i learn stuff

Lol I love how you're able to transport yourself back in time & legitimately appreciate this old bit of tech. Not everyone is able to get excited like this about something so old. It's part of what I love about this channel :)

You really do a great job of demonstrating the excitement that using something like this would bring to someone of that era

I don't even remember a time when I had a CD-ROM that wasn't at least 8x speed; I knew 1X existed back then but the concept is still unfathomable for me.

Owen Wilson style 'woww' had me laughing.

I must give your credit. You make good videos which have a distinct flavor of their own.

Love watching you geek out about some old tech, always gives me a certain amount of joy ☺️

The World Almanac & Book of Farts. Loved the Owen Wilson insert too. :D

It's these things that make me love this channel. I remember back in the 90's when we got a Sony Viao PC (was it Vaio? I dont remember) and we got a Zip drive for it it was insane. 100MB of storage! You've gotta be crazy!!! Just thinking about the things we thought were top of the line back then is so hilarious to think about now. And that PC came with 2 gb of hard drive space and I believe 16mb of ram, which to me, at the time, seemed outrageous. It was our first family computer when I was growing up, and my parents were so out of loop I had to sit there and do everything they needed the PC to do because they didn't even know the first thing about how it worked. It was such a crazy time where everything seemed so brand new and experimental. I don't know if anything will ever be like that again, people just aren't that impressed by tech these days but back then everything was mindblowing. And another story for another time, I remember when my dad impulse bought me the game Unreal just because he wanted to see what the PC could do. Seriously as a teenager back then, playing Unreal for the first time was something else. It was light-years ahead of what I was used to seeing I couldn't believe that a game like that was possible.

Just awesome content Clint! Looking forward to the next retro hardware goodie! Stay safe (due to COVID-19), more power, and God bless from the Philippines!

LGR: "I have this..." Everyone: "WHERE ARE YOU FINDING THESE NEW THINGS! LEND US YOUR TIME MACHINE!"

"imagine feeling like a baller walking out with this" Nowadays people laugh at you if you have a dedicated CD or DVD drive. How times change.

I am loving this channel. I have been binge watching all weekend. Love your stuff! It's lighting a fire in me to build an old school PC.... until I look at prices for parts on ebay. :D So with that, I am glad I have your channel.

Fancy new intro Clint! Im liking that very much.

Love the nostalgia on your channel Clint and I especially appreciate the consistency. All the best from Poland!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1415">23:35</a> _"The price you pay for not paying any price."_ Man, that was deep.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="930">15:30</a> This is actually insane, even for a program without internet in today's standard that's a lot a lot of information! From so many cultures, continents, race, religions, language it got it allll covered that's amazing honestly, let alone being in the 80's when most of these were on books only!

Thanks for the video. It was cool to learn about a CD drive from the 80s. It’s fun to imagine doing work that would use this in 87.

Poor CDROM is being molested at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="432">7:12</a> "Do not make the center hole larger" GG

"Fart, ~n: A usually audible discharge of intestinal gas"

Dear LGR, i like all of your NOSTALGIC topic about computer. It is very informative. Keep up the good work. I used to be a computer technician back in 1992. It brings back the memory of 8086, 8088, 286, 386 and 486. I hope you can feature in your blog about the INTERROGATOR alignment that we use to align the head of 5 1/4 disk drive..

Dear LRG, you make videos that deserve to be watched full screen. Thank you.

OMG! I remember my dad upgrading to this drive when I was like 5 years old. The drive before you had to put the CD in a caddy. I never knew what he did for work then so thought it was something futuristic and amazing! Turned out it was Health & Safety. 😕🤦‍♂️

My first CD-ROMs were bonus disks that came with the driver I got with my first win95 PC. It came with an encyclopedia, some educational games, some shareware, Descent and Cyberia full games. It was my first pc and as someone who just played on consoles, it blew my mind.

Love the sound editing. The way that the sax faded out exactly at the right moment (<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="570">9:30</a>). Is like I'm watching a movie.

This was wonderful to watch, one of my favorites so far 👍🙂

You know, I’ve never seen a text mode audio CD player and for it to be DOS and proprietary from Sony

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="115">1:55</a> "Improbable baloney" disc. It wasn't enough to have an "Unscrupulous Nonsense" disk?

thats actually a really neat software suite for 1987. kind of mind blowing that you could have access to so much information right from inside programs like that. that is computing with power.

i know this might seem late but thank you LGR for doing those cross overs with pushing up roses i enjoy those videos alot

1987: get dressed, go outside, get in car, go to the store, Spend 2 thousand dollars on a cd drive, spend who knows how many thousands of dollars for the pc, get home, set it all up, Run all the cables, install the drivers with commands, run the cd with commands, open the very non user friendly UI, open the dictionary with commands, navigate to where you can actually enter the word, enter the word, wait for it to load, read the definition 2020: "ok google, whats the definition of ____" god i love technology.

“Unexpectedly jazzy tame impala plays” When Clint even makes his subtitles humorous!

thanks to my sinus issues (its snowy here lately), I swear it sounded like you said "Krispy Kreme components" and I ended up laughing more than I should as a result. That said, great video! I love learning about this old stuff and the history behind it all so keep up the great work!

Thanks LGR for remembering my childhood with this nice old piece of technology.

Used Bookshelf a lot. For its time, pre-Google internet, it was wonderful! I worked on mainframes during this time period and the ability to search for related topics across multiple documents was great.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="470">7:50</a> OCLC? I can see how a library might want a set of these drives to be able to search OCLC records without having to connect to the internet.

I really like the new intro, very well done

You create such wonderful videos, I imagine the people who designed this tech world love them.

I’ve noticed on more than one occasion the addition of a random still image. “Luke Wilson” was in this video.

Meanwhile, I just tossed my optical drive for a second SSD. I remember first getting my CD/VCD player in 2001. I was amazed how a disc can hold an hour worth of movie or 80 minutes of songs.

Ah, yes, before trays, we had cartridges. My first CDROM drive was a cart loader. You could even buy additional carts to “protect” your discs. Man, I’m old. Hahaha! Most of the stuff you show as retro, I witnessed first hand as a teen or younger. So glad you enjoy this old tech and are preserving it through your videos!

I’ve always been a nerd but my friend, you drive me to straight nerd-topia ever since I started watching your channel!!

My first CD experience was with Civilization 2 Gold Edition back in the day.

I burst out laughing at the "cd rom snuff comic" line. :D

im so glad you stopped on something in the phone directory in my city. Wild.

Never thought of myself, that I will find long videos from cd-rom drives this interesting, but I love them it seems... :D

That cd drive is sick! Love the shareware CD, which leads me to the question: what’s your favorite “Shareware Compendium” from the DOS or Win9x period?

Is there any way I could convince you to film Myst running on a 1X drive? I'm very curious how that runs, since its what Myst was designed for despite the fact you can't really emulate it that way as far as I know

I love that you caption European measurements (cm and kg). I am too lazy to look it up, so I usually just stick with "well, it's about...", but no more! Thank you, from Denmark!

Nice! First CD-ROM experience was the bundled software with family's first PC, a 486-DX2 in 1994. It was Microsoft Dangerous Creatures (still got it!) which I remember to be quite fun as a 10-year old at the time.

I bet 95% (or more) of those businesses on that 1993 phone book on CD are permanently closed!

I'm old enough to remember the early marketing for CDs when they portrayed them as indestructible, literally showing people driving cars over them and throwing them in the dishwasher and then working perfectly afterwards, LOL.

Please do more LGR Thrifts when Covid is over! Really love watching you explore thriftshops.

Dude, you just blew my mind! That was the FIRST CD-ROM drive I ever installed, on the VIC30 XT clone machine I built for my parents! My father bought it at Pace Membership Warehouse as they were running a clearance and bundling it with a 6 disc encyclopedia and an 8 bit SCSI card. Must have been around 1990. But I remember the model number, and the joy of breaking open that lovely box! Ah, new drive smell!

When these came out I remember mostly being excited about being able to swap around 600mb of files for my BBS users at will.

Hey Clint, still crossing my fingers for that Deus ex 1 retrospective ❤️

This *was* fun to watch. I was just a kid in 87 and I only have a very, very vague memory of CDs coming into fashion in the 80s. Cool to see some history!

For me, it was me working at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Save Program, In Supply in 1987. A looking up stock and parts numbers catalog program. Far better than all those many really big books I learned to use at first. All of them on one small CD-ROM. That was a really big thing to me at the time. Made my job so much more easy. The disc was in a caddy. And CD-ROM Drive was twice as big as that one. More the size of that computer under it. It often had to be cleaned out of all the dust it sucked up in it like a vacuum cleaner. 1st time I saw canned air too. Canned air. That really blow my mind when I saw that existed. I was only 16 years old and working as a student aid part-time in a high school vocational program. I later worked there for a contractor doing Auto CAD for the engineers and using big printers to print the ships plans out. Using the first Computer Coax Cable Network I ever saw to.