A brilliant idea ruined by some dingus at RCA insisting on an hour per side. Y’know. Like how records aren’t.
Also, they whiffed on the cotton-gin problem. They spent ages formulating metallic vinyl. But… the signal is just pits. Same as Laserdisc. All they had to do was press normal vinyl with a shitload of tiny holes and then put metal in 'em. Nontrivial! Probably a hideous cancer risk. But metal powders and some kind of glue are easier to work with when they don’t have to withstand a ten-ton press and still act structural.
And genuinely - the consumer hardware was so cheap. It’s just a flake of metal in a stylus, which changes capacitance when it’s over a pit, and if you amplify that wiggly line, it’s a standard TV signal. That’s all! Even with 1960s technology, that could’ve been pocket-sized, if not for the stupidly tiny grooves that skipped over any micrometer of dust. Lasedisc does the same analog-binary video signal, but it needs a laser and laser tracking and electrical conversion and yadda yadda yadda. RCA’s solution was like a phonograph, but simpler. They could’ve sold Star Trek TOS episodes as soon as they aired - if only they’d told people to flip them in the middle.
A brilliant idea ruined by some dingus at RCA insisting on an hour per side. Y’know. Like how records aren’t.
Also, they whiffed on the cotton-gin problem. They spent ages formulating metallic vinyl. But… the signal is just pits. Same as Laserdisc. All they had to do was press normal vinyl with a shitload of tiny holes and then put metal in 'em. Nontrivial! Probably a hideous cancer risk. But metal powders and some kind of glue are easier to work with when they don’t have to withstand a ten-ton press and still act structural.
And genuinely - the consumer hardware was so cheap. It’s just a flake of metal in a stylus, which changes capacitance when it’s over a pit, and if you amplify that wiggly line, it’s a standard TV signal. That’s all! Even with 1960s technology, that could’ve been pocket-sized, if not for the stupidly tiny grooves that skipped over any micrometer of dust. Lasedisc does the same analog-binary video signal, but it needs a laser and laser tracking and electrical conversion and yadda yadda yadda. RCA’s solution was like a phonograph, but simpler. They could’ve sold Star Trek TOS episodes as soon as they aired - if only they’d told people to flip them in the middle.