We just came back from driving my parents to Atlanta to see my brother and his family, had a great time.

Anyway, my bother updated his living room stereo, his existing systems passing down into other rooms, leaving an early 90's Onkyo TX-840 receiver needing a home.

Power output: 60 watts per channel (stereo)
Frequency response: 20Hz to 30kHz
Total harmonic distortion: 0.08%

My next door neighbor in Jacksonville had already given me a pair of beat up Bose 201s which I cleaned up and repaired (speakers themselves were fine), now I have something to power them.

So now my man cave has proper sound, using Shuffle or laptop iTunes playlists for input...





However, if I come upon my Pioneer Quadraphonic 8-track receiver and some tapes when I'm going through my parent's attic, I might have to move this one elsewhere.

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My niece's husband gave me a laser disc player and a few movies. He was going to give me Firefox as well when I told him it was my favorite movie. I couldn't take it from him, I'll eventually find my own...




Showing DVD for comparison (a movie is typically 2 discs, using both sides of disc)...



I love this old stuff. If ever I purchase a nearly new 1988 Fiero GT, it must have an Alpine auto-reverse tape deck. The tape rattle and hiss is part of the experience.

I have a Genius 5.1 gaming set. I'm too young/reckless to have vintage stuff like this.

BTW, I do recommend Techmoan on Youtube. That dude has some good vintage stuff for sure.

Also, DOS 6?

Your bookshelf looks like a trip down Memory Lane too judging by the titles!

Wait, I'm too young for my cool college stuff to be vintage! LOL
I still have my Denon PMA560 integrated amp. Big heavy and beautiful! Needs the balance (insert proper component term) things replaced. One day I'll get that done and put it on some new speakers. My old Boston's gave up the ghost. Still have my entirely too big Yamaha eq.

As for old stuff, I've got my parents Fisher console stereo. Dad got rid of the component themselves back when vacuum tubes were almost impossible find years ago, unfortunately, but the plan is to one day build retro looking stereo controls into it but with some kind of media PC.

Laser discs are cool!
I'd also like a modern phono player. Some can get a better sound than CD.

I have a bunch of LDs still, but when I tried to watch one recently on my TV I cringed.

The picture is just awful by current standards. First-gen DVDs were superior, and now we're used to HD, BD, and even 4k.

I tried to watch Mission Impossible, the Jon Voight one, and after about 15 minutes I gave up. That weekend I found the complete 5 film set on BD at target for $35, grabbed it.
I also had MI2 and MI3 on DVD, but the BD blows them away as well, although they're still at least watchable.

The difference is old pre-HD TVs with their low resolution naturally blurred this stuff, making it look better. As anyone who's tried to play a game at 1366x768 res on a 1080p monitor knows, LCDs don't like anything but their native res.

My LD collection includes the special edition of Terminator 2 (the first time the deleted scenes were available, and lots of extra features) and both the original SW trilogy in THX and the 1997 special edition in DD5.1. DD arrived at the tail end of the LD era, so there are some LDs with it, but most are just Dolby Surround, like the unaltered trilogy.

TBH, though, I just don't watch them anymore. Image quality just hurts my eyes, although the sound is still good.



The Jedi Master

Last time I saw a LD it was on a rear projection screen and DirecTv was brand new. I can see how it would look rough now, and surely they don't upscale.
At the time though, Top Gun and Apocalypse Now never looked so good.

<Apologies for pic reuse>


Cool stuff in those YT videos, thanks.

I still have a DOS 6.22 box, almost entirely for nostalgia though, as DOSBox takes care of my real DOS needs.

I still use parallel port (LPT1) tape backup on the DOS PC...



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In case you can read any titles in the left bookcase, those aren't mine (and neither is the puzzle table, I have to share the space).

In fact, my man cave is only truly mine after 5 PM, minus one hour, two days a week when my wife and I workout. She's usually on the treadmill in the morning, mom plays her keyboard in the afternoon (less now with serious arthritis) and dad will sometimes play with my weights...





Otherwise, after 5 PM everybody get the hell out! Except on date night, of course.

Parents are usually in the living room by then anyway, watching the 5 o'clock news.

Every married man needs a space to call his own (as if you all don't already know this), *especially* if your parents are living with you. Even if you have to timeshare it, you need that personal space to keep your sanity.

With a miniature bar, sleeper sofa and music.

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I was going to paint it all black with black Spanish tiles and a black ceiling (with spray glitter), replace the trim with sawmill tooth woodwork like the bay/gear doors of the F-117. Fortunately, my mid-life craziness is beginning to fade and I'm second guessing that idea.

The guy (niece's husband) who gave me the LaserDisc has two more players and lots of movies. He's in his early 30's so it can't be nostalgic, I think it's just a hobby of his to collect old formats (gaming systems as well).

He also has new toys like the PS4 VR I posted about and a smart watch, plus TVs and stuff. In fact, he told me next time he wants me to check out a couple VR demos, a shark tank and a roller coaster haunted house, I think.

He has a stash of movies in a format I've never seen or heard of. No, not HD DVD (he has that too, which is new to me), this is big like a laser disc but the disc is inside of a hard cover. You apparently insert the entire large case into a machine, like a giant 3.5" floppy disc. I have no idea what it is, but he hasn't found a player for them yet.

I think I know what you're talking about, but what I'm picturing was data. Could've been movies but an early form of laser disc?

Now that you mention it, I remember him saying it wasn't digital, but then he opened one up (it slides out on a ring) and it looked like a laser disc to me. Alright, I gotta look this up, I'll recognize it if I see it.

Ok, I Bing searched "movie format looks like laser disc"

Videodisc

That's it.

BTW, brother's new stuff is Denon.

Also, I think the appeal of LaserDisc today is the fantastic packaging. His Special Edition Star Wars (for example) has all kinds of neat stuff in the huge packaging, I'll take a pic of it next time I go.

Yes, the LDs gave you a lot for your money with the special boxes. The special edition for SW looked nice, but the original CAV THX set (as opposed to the CLV DD5.1 set) came with a big old coffee table book about ILM. With the 9 discs for the films, it was like 2.5x the size of the newer set.

However, prices were higher. In the early 90s it was about $40 for the LD release of a movie that came with nothing. The special edition SW set was $120 IIRC in 1997/98. The CAV set with the book was $200-250 in 1994/5, I forget exactly. For just 3 movies.

I will say CAV discs do appear slightly better than CLV now, but because of studio histrionics about piracy and conversion I don't have a single receiver that will upconvert my LD's S video or RCA output to digital over my HDMI connection.



The Jedi Master

I can remember the time I managed a video rental store (first one in Iowa) and my boss and I went to the Chicago big deal electronics show. They were showing the new RCA Selectavision disc player and I was amazed (at the time). Must admit the Playboy bunnies that were in the booth amazed me more.

Also at this expo or show Sony was showing mini video cameras. At this time to record video you had to have a large camera and a heavy large recorder as well with lots of batteries so seeing this little hand held all in one video camera was something special. I remember they had them laying around for anyone to grab and shoot some video. After you shot your video they took the camera and gave it to a tech that processed the video via an elaborate console with lots of knobs and screens. Also saw my first flat screen tv there as one hall wall was lined with them.

Cool story, Warbirds.

Playboy bunnies, eh? Let's see, early-to-mid 80's...ah, most likely the all natural look.

I remember the bulky video cameras, big enough to hold a VHS tape for recording...



We were lucky enough to know someone who owned one of these (wife's cousin) when we got married Jan. '88. He taped it for us which was a big deal back then, to have video of your wedding and reception. Only thought of it because my brother gave me an MP4 just last week after converting from VHS.

I was looking at my first LaserDisc player pic and noticed the display glass is crooked. I pushed it up with my finger and it snapped into place.

He, Techmoan... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LrPe0rwXOU

Thanks, WileECoyote.

Very interesting, I was going to check out his videos first thing in the morning (my satellite internet has different bandwidth monitoring before 8AM) but this had me curious about something else from Techmoan, and I couldn't resist...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLZS0Sj9-1U

That was one of the coolest YT videos I've ever seen!

1. How 8-track works.

2. A brand new Pioneer recorder unboxed and tested, oh man!

3. 8-tracks today are so old, they probably need repairs to play if they can play at all (dashes my dreams of finding mine in playable condition).

Oh well, I still loved them in the early-to-mid 80's when I had little money to spend on music!

First video camera my dad bought was a 2-parter. The camera itself was fairly large, it was a few pounds in weight with a pro-looking mic sticking out the front, auto and manual focus (the lens looked like a still camera). It then was connected by a cable...to half of the VHS VCR!

The VCR was in two pieces. One half was the tuner. The other half that disconnected and came with a bag with a shoulder strap had the tape with all the buttons and a big old battery as wide as it was across the back. It would last an hour or so I think, so we had two of them.

Full-size VHS, none of that mini stuff that came later. Pausing recording used up the battery at almost the same rate as recording (because of how VHS works when paused) so you had to shut it off a lot and then wait to turn it back on.
Viewfinder was B&W screen, although the camera took color video of course.

The full setup probably weighed 20lbs.


The Jedi Master

Something else I learned on Techmoan's 8-track video above, at 5:50...



I had the quadrophonic version of that receiver. Those specs are horrible.

Truly I'm looking back with nostalgic rose-colored glasses, that couldn't have sounded very good, even with a turntable (I also had to add a passive preamp as in that video with the first player he tried).

Eh, if I find my old receiver I'll just put it on display (came with four speakers, cabinets were pretty but the speakers themselves must surely be shot, sitting in an attic for decades).