As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a Laserdisc
player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It works, but not well.
Looks like a VHS does after being copied many many times - dreadfully
noisy colour. Captions black on white look fine, though. I remember these
being pretty close to a decent broadcast analogue picture, so is there
anything simple worth checking before junking it?
The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay - perhaps a quid each - so we
were hoping to dispose of them all as a job lot. Any monies received going
to charity. Any suggestions?

--
*Money isn't everything, but it sure keeps the kids in touch.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:02:27 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a Laserdisc
player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It works, but not
well. Looks like a VHS does after being copied many many times -
dreadfully noisy colour. Captions black on white look fine, though. I
remember these being pretty close to a decent broadcast analogue
picture, so is there anything simple worth checking before junking it?
The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay - perhaps a quid each - so we
were hoping to dispose of them all as a job lot. Any monies received
going to charity. Any suggestions?

Have you a museum nearby ?

Sounds facetious, but I had to smile at the ZX81 I saw in Birmingham's
Science museum.

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:42:38 +0000, Jethro wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:02:27 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a
Laserdisc player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It works,
but not well. Looks like a VHS does after being copied many many times
- dreadfully noisy colour. Captions black on white look fine, though. I
remember these being pretty close to a decent broadcast analogue
picture, so is there anything simple worth checking before junking it?
The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay - perhaps a quid each - so we
were hoping to dispose of them all as a job lot. Any monies received
going to charity. Any suggestions?

Have you a museum nearby ?

Sounds facetious, but I had to smile at the ZX81 I saw in Birmingham's
Science museum.

I just smile at the one in my workshop!

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a Laserdisc
player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It works, but not well.
....
to charity. Any suggestions?

Might be of use to people reconditioning Domesday laserdisc players.
http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/domesday/AboutDomesday.html

Try posting on comp.sys.acorn.hardware

JGH

Bob Eager wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:42:38 +0000, Jethro wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:02:27 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a
Laserdisc player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It works,
but not well. Looks like a VHS does after being copied many many times
- dreadfully noisy colour. Captions black on white look fine, though. I
remember these being pretty close to a decent broadcast analogue
picture, so is there anything simple worth checking before junking it?
The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay - perhaps a quid each - so we
were hoping to dispose of them all as a job lot. Any monies received
going to charity. Any suggestions?

Have you a museum nearby ?

Sounds facetious, but I had to smile at the ZX81 I saw in Birmingham's
Science museum.

I just smile at the one in my workshop!


I loaded an emulator on my laptop, wrote a 5 line program and ran it for the
kids - in SLOW mode which AFAICS was pretty realistic. Random numbers at a
rate of about 1 per second...

Found a picture of one hooked up to a small portable B&W TV and said "that's
pretty much what I had".

Went to shed to get shovel to scrape their jaws off the floor...



--
Tim Watts

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:50:50 +0000, Huge wrote:

On 2012-01-20, Bob Eager wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:42:38 +0000, Jethro wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:02:27 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a
Laserdisc player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It
works, but not well. Looks like a VHS does after being copied many
many times - dreadfully noisy colour. Captions black on white look
fine, though. I remember these being pretty close to a decent
broadcast analogue picture, so is there anything simple worth
checking before junking it? The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay
- perhaps a quid each - so we were hoping to dispose of them all as a
job lot. Any monies received going to charity. Any suggestions?

Have you a museum nearby ?

Sounds facetious, but I had to smile at the ZX81 I saw in Birmingham's
Science museum.

I just smile at the one in my workshop!

I gave mine to Bletchley Park.

I've seen it. I have a calculator I must take along next time I go.
--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 20/01/2012 17:42, Jethro wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:02:27 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a Laserdisc
player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It works, but not
well. Looks like a VHS does after being copied many many times -
dreadfully noisy colour. Captions black on white look fine, though. I
remember these being pretty close to a decent broadcast analogue
picture, so is there anything simple worth checking before junking it?
The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay - perhaps a quid each - so we
were hoping to dispose of them all as a job lot. Any monies received
going to charity. Any suggestions?

Have you a museum nearby ?

Sounds facetious, but I had to smile at the ZX81 I saw in Birmingham's
Science museum.

A friend of mine works in IT, delving deep into the innards of
databases. He has had at work (for a number of years) my ZX-80 in a
glass fronted case with a sign reading "Emergency Backup System, Break
Glass".

SteveW

On Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:01:58 +0000, Steve Walker wrote:
A friend of mine works in IT, delving deep into the innards of
databases. He has had at work (for a number of years) my ZX-80 in a
glass fronted case with a sign reading "Emergency Backup System, Break
Glass".

:-) Mine's a sod to get working with any kind of modern TV - IIRC they
were all a bit picky as there was some quirk with the TV signal that they
generated. It might be wise to include some sort of display as part of
the backup ;-)

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:19:33 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:50:50 +0000, Huge wrote:

On 2012-01-20, Bob Eager wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:42:38 +0000, Jethro wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:02:27 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

As part of a clearing out of a deceased pal's flat we've got a
Laserdisc player and some 300 discs. (He was a real hoarder) It
works, but not well. Looks like a VHS does after being copied many
many times - dreadfully noisy colour. Captions black on white look
fine, though. I remember these being pretty close to a decent
broadcast analogue picture, so is there anything simple worth
checking before junking it? The discs seem to fetch not much on Ebay
- perhaps a quid each - so we were hoping to dispose of them all as
a job lot. Any monies received going to charity. Any suggestions?

Have you a museum nearby ?

Sounds facetious, but I had to smile at the ZX81 I saw in
Birmingham's Science museum.

I just smile at the one in my workshop!

I gave mine to Bletchley Park.

I've seen it.

There are quite a few there* (or at least were when I worked there) - it
seems that they're still quite common. I had four or five myself at one
point, but gave them away during a clear-out - I wish I'd kept one now,
because it's not as though they take up a lot of space! I do still have a
ZX-80 and Spectrum in storage, though.

* well, at TNMOC on BP's land - although BP themselves did have a small
computer collection (but I'm not sure if they still do).

cheers

Jules

Just as an update, I've tried it out at home and it's pretty well like I
remember them, so not faulty. Not sure why it didn't work well on the pals
BFO 3D set via a SCART.

--
*Okay, who stopped the payment on my reality check? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
says...

Just as an update, I've tried it out at home and it's pretty well like I
remember them, so not faulty. Not sure why it didn't work well on the pals
BFO 3D set via a SCART.

Take a look at:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/index.php

You should find plenty of help there, if you need it, and, if you want
to find a new home for it and the disc collection, I'm sure someone
would like to keep it as a working machine - much better than a static
exhibit in a museum ...

--

Terry

In article ,
lid says...

In article ,
says...

Just as an update, I've tried it out at home and it's pretty well like I
remember them, so not faulty. Not sure why it didn't work well on the pals
BFO 3D set via a SCART.

Take a look at:

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/index.php

You should find plenty of help there, if you need it, and, if you want
to find a new home for it and the disc collection, I'm sure someone
would like to keep it as a working machine - much better than a static
exhibit in a museum ...

I have posted a link to this group/subject he

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...506#post498506

--

Terry

I've looked on Ebay, and working players seem to have a value. Although I
couldn't find a Philips Matchline like this one to do a direct comparison.
So it looks like we'll Ebay it.

--
*If you can read this, thank a teecher

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.