Check out this story predicting the future of audio recordings.
I distinctly remember first hearing about CDs in 1984. Wasn’t that just a couple of years ago?
Bonus question: What the hell is that device the mullet-headed audiophile is placing on his vinyl album at 4:20? I’ve never seen such a thing. I assume it secures the record to the turntable. Anyone know what it is called?
mmm
I didn’t even watch the video, but I’m guessing it’s a “spindle clamp.”
Another mystical device audiophiles imbue with magical properties. I once heard one demoed at a very high-end audio store, and it didn’t make a bit of difference to the sound.
holy crap it’s Mort Crim.
good guess.
vinyl is lousy enough that anyone who claims any objective superiority can be safely dismissed.
What is up with that dude’s hair at the 1:50 mark? That ain’t right.
Along the same lines, here’s part of a 1980 20/20 feature on the future of music videos and laserdiscs!
There was a Part 2 but it got taken down. Bastard.
Something different, here’s a fascinating slice of a show called The Internet Show about, well, the internet. This is just a bit about how the internet helped to stop the attempted coup in Russia in 1991.
Leonard Nimoy seems to be quite fond of laserdiscs as well.
I love news stories like this.
Oh lord, the hair.
We actually looked like that.
Small hijack - the guy talking about CDs said you could just “pop it in and play it.” Did records basically work the same way? To clarify, once you started a record at song 1, would it just play the whole album without you having to move the needle around?
Not really; a vinyl LP will (nearly always) have one single groove on a side, and will play the entire side all the way through without human intervention. However, an album has two sides; when Side 1 of a vinyl album ends, you need to get up, flip the record over, and restart it on Side 2 – whereas a CD of that same album would have the contents of both “sides” on one CD.
It would play the who album from track 1 onward. But you had to align the needle at the beginning of the disc- if you weren’t careful you would end up in track 1, or later if you were really sloppy. If you dropped the arm to fast you could damage the needle. Most record players moved the arm and dropped it automatically into the correct place for you.
I even had a fancy record player that would flip the disk, for the ultimate in no-hassle stereophonic entertainment! 
So if Nimoy with a goatee was Evil Spock, then this version was Porn Spock.
But what if the album wasn’t by The Who?
It’d still play an album by The Who. This represented part of the tremendous advance when CDs were introduced; they would, instead, play an album by The Police.
I’ll keep my 3 laser pickup, 8x oversampling, 10-second skip protection player thank you very much.
(And it’s programmable!)
Whole.
Not who.
Dammit. :smack:
I can’t believe I’ve reached the age where it’s necessary to explain how LPs work. :smack:
ETA: Now excuse me, I have to catch the 1:30 auto-gyro to Siam.
I’ve never felt so goddamned old in my life.
mmm
Thanks.