Re: Did Commodore cheat with the quad density floppies?

Den Sun, 13 Jan 2019 12:44:01 +0000 skrev smf <smf@null.net>:
> On 13/01/2019 08:39, silverdr@wfmh.org.pl wrote:
> > Not really, but it was already late, and since V2000 was too good
> > (read: couldn't be sold cheap) when it entered the market, its fate
> > was sealed quickly.
> 
> Betamax had 100% of the market until VHS launched, by the time Video 
> 2000 launched VHS had seized over 50% of that market.

That's not totally accurate. The old Philips VCR system did actually
still sell, although in smaller quantities, right up to almost at the
time V2000 launched.

> VHS won partly on cost and partly on the ridiculously short recording 
> time.

Re VCR and V2000 I think VHS also won on more reliable hardware. In the
70's, Philips really wanted to make as many parts of their products
them self as possible, and as they afaik didn't own any steel
production plant they used more and more plastic parts. In their
reel-to-reel recorders they for example used plastic flywheels with a
metal part as a weight on the outer part. If you did drop an N4418 or
similar to the floor, the fly wheel would break from it's axle. This is
btw why I avoid most Philips cassette stuff that aren't at least 45
years old or so, while I gladly use any of their amplifiers, tuners,
recievers (and strangely enough record players) of the 70's.

The early VHS machines were built as tanks. They also had the weight of
a tank, and did cost a lot of money (8000-8500 SEK back in 1978, which
were a few months vages. Today 1 EUR is about 9-9.5 SEK, as a
reference).

> I think we had a 21" crt, the concept of a home cinema didn't exist. 
> There certainly weren't enough people who would pay a premium for
> video 2000 to drive the movie rentals.
> 
> If a time traveller took a bluray player and one disc back in time,
> then they'd have trouble selling it to someone to just watch that
> disc.

Yeah, it wasn't until the 90's that home cinema became a hobby thing.

I think the consumer electronic manufacturers were still focusing on
selling regular two channel stereos at the time. I've read somewhere
that at some point in the 70's (perhaps mid 70's) two thirds of the
house holds in Sweden had something that could qualify as a stereo
while in West Germany only one third of the house holds had a stereo
(!), so there were still a market for first-time stereo buyers. There
were also still a marked for upgrading from B&W to color TV sets.

Btw the first Grundig TV set with a composite video input did have a
mains frequency transformer feeding the TV set. It was heavy :) (Every
other consumer TV set with a composite video input did have a switch
mode supply, and TV sets without a composite input usually only
rectified the mains power directly without any transformer except for
in some cases some low voltage parts. Afaik there were silly TVs which
used the same switch power supply to both generate all voltages in
general and also the high tension / horisontal deflection. Would had
been good if they didn't have a stand by mode, which they had...).

> > There were. I had (borrowed) the original Star Wars, split to two
> > sides of a VCC for example.
> 
> I'm not saying they didn't exist, Star Wars was everywhere. Other
> than one kid at school whose parents had bought a video 2000 recorder
> and they always complained they couldn't find any rental tapes, I had
> no experience of video 2000.
> 
> It was also released on 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc , which I 
> hadn't even heard of until about a dozen years ago when a friend
> bought a player.

So you are a friend of TechMoan on youtube, or are there any others
who would actually buy a CED nowdays? ;) ;) 


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