Do you remember

[mkiker2089]

How about some nostalgia to chat about.........

Do you remember when CD's game in those long cardboard boxes? What did games come in, Nintendo and computer? i can't recall. It's odd that many stores still use plastic to fit the same shape as those boxes.

Do you remember when the idea of used CD's was new and stores cropped up everywhere just for it, then died out?

Do you remember pre-Blockbuster rentals?

Do you remember when big name movies would come on TV a year later and it was huge event?

[tucco]

Many, many used CD stores with names like "slip disk" and such around here came and went .....

I remember music snobs being duped into thinking CD's were the ultimate in fidelity...when they were just compressed and thrown on the cd format with no upgrade in sound at all....the only advantage was the sound wouldn't degrade like vinyl or tape.
Not til years later did remastering start...Anything recorded for the format wasn't TOO bad.....but older analog stuff thrown on disk was awful......Beatles catalog being the most famous example.

pre Blockbuster renting. Wow, I remember when everyone from the local milk marts to the pizza joints, etc. had video rental corners in their stores.
Me and my friends saw a lot of our first video nasties that way......I Spit On Your Grave, etc. we first saw by way of renting it from the local convenience store's video rack.

[mkiker2089]

In my area the general stores didn't do video rental, or I didn't notice. We had a few video rental stores pop up though and they spaced themselves so that pretty much you went to the closest one. Odd considering they were not affiliated in any way but logical also. Most died about the time blockbuster came in partly due to competition, partly due to the oversaturation of several stores, and partly just a general decline as VHS lost some of it's new but was yet to be in every house.

I had forgotten about the early CDs but you are right. They were overcompressed I think or something because they don't have that problem now. Audiophiles still swear by vinyl as far as I know.

Aren't the music masters on analouge anyway or has that even changed?

[Future Man]

In my area the general stores didn't do video rental, or I didn't notice. We had a few video rental stores pop up though and they spaced themselves so that pretty much you went to the closest one. Odd considering they were not affiliated in any way but logical also. Most died about the time blockbuster came in partly due to competition, partly due to the oversaturation of several stores, and partly just a general decline as VHS lost some of it's new but was yet to be in every house.

I don't miss the smell of the pre-Blockbuster video store near me. Eau de rotting videtape cover suffused with stale cigarette smoke, or something. Made my eyes water.

[Gabriel Girard]

Snes games came in medium cardboard boxes. I can't remember if there was something else in there besides the instructions manual. I remember big boxes for CD-Roms like The 7th Guest.

There was a a small video store where really cool & nice punks that did the service. Of course once Blockbuster came they lost their jobs...

I still have my Colecovision at my mom's place. We even have that weird joystick/glove thing to play baseball.

I also remember those huge floppy disks for the Commodore 64.

[HGervais]

I worked in a mom & pop video store in the early 1980s and have fond memories of it. I discovered A LOT of movies that summer. The store was clean & bright thank you very much. Monday, Tuesday & Wed. were 2 for 1 rentals.
Anyone remember what the disc format was before the advent of laserdiscs?

[mkiker2089]

Before laserdisc? There was VCD but I'm not sure if it took off at all. Didn't it have something like a 30 minute run time? Not that Laserdisc was much better and the quality couldn't have been better either. When did SVCD come along? I seem to recall that it was either pre-ld or near the same time but it didn't work out either. I only know of SVCD because I had a cd burner and was trying to put episodes of House on it. SVCD is severely limited also so I gave up. One episode of House (40 some odd minutes) had too much compression so the audio kept straying. I'm told I could fix it but I'd rather not bother.

When you say nintendo was in a medium box, would that be just bigger than the cartridge? CD roms and floppy disk boxes were all across the board for awhile. Some commodore games came in GIANT boxes, as in large hardback book size, some slightly smaller but still large that you occasionally see now for software and a later cd media came in the above two or in the shrunken size that you would still see today which is still a bit large for a CD. I remember getting a few Windows 95 games and wondering why the box at all.

Speaking of software, anyone remember when software came on CD's and the instructions were full sized. As in the didn't fit in the jewel box but were large print leaflets that you had to store separately. That was annoying, especially for games.

Commodore games ruled. I wish we had bootable games now. I'd get back into PC gaming if we did but our hardware just isn't built for it. To me PC games ended with DOS

[HGervais]

VCD...that was it. strange little format.

[BrettCullum]

Ah, memories...

I remember all those mom & pop video rental stores. They were great! The boxes out on the shelves, and you brought it up and they got it for you from behind the counter more often than not. BLOCKBUSTER and HOLLYWOOD ruined them, because they each had their own feeling and vibe. Then it all became corporate, standard, predictable. I haven't been inside a BLOCKBUSTER in a very long time. And to think at the start of this decade I was a GOLD CARD customer who was there almost daily! My how things change...

I do recall the big boxes for CDs. Part of that was to make people feel like they were still getting art which was a big gripe when the LP died. Now in this digital age, I am lucky if I have it even on a disc... let alone the book and the art. Album covers just really don't matter as much anymore outside of their JPEG uses. Again, I used to go to record or CD stores almost daily. Now I can't tell you when was the last time...

Used CD stores were great too, and so were used DVD stores. Both died hideous deaths I suppose. Everybody tried to get in on the action, and eventually... it all died. Well, most of them anyways. I need a few good ones to still be around so I can liquidate my collections. LOL! I'm sure record labels and studios hate the idea of resellers... no profit for them. I remember somebody like Garth Brooks came out against USED CD stores saying it was killing music at the time, very similar to what people said about Napster and such.

So what do you think we'll be missing in another decade? I hear many brands and types of stores and bars are on the way out... it's been looming for years, the demise of brick and mortar.

[Dunnyman]

Ah, the infamous "longbox" for CD's, just an extra bit of cardboard, plastic and whatever to make the boxes harder to hide under a coat. Believe it or not, Joan Jett was the first artist to refuse to allow her CD's to use the longbox because of it's waste of resources. Then Springsteen and U2 jumped in and it was gone. Every Tuesday was Tower Records after work, checking out new releases on the listening stations, and they were doubly cool because they had a huge selection of VHS for sale, and pretty good prices. Bought my last album there, Cheap Trick's Lap Of Luxury, and my last cassette, Come On Feel The Lemonheads, as well. Used CD's were simply taken up by Streetlight Records, an excellent source int he Bay Area for used albums, tapes, CD's and just about anything music or video related.
Pre BlockBuster for us it was ULTIMATE VIdeo, where you had to buy a membership at a cost of 40.00, but they guaranteed at least 30 copies of new releases, so you could get it within a few days of release pretty much every time. They were a bit of a drive for me, but they had tons of good stuff, and some pretty obscure as well, but they will always be remembered by me as THE place for slasher flicks. From total crap to superb, they had 'em all!
Movies on TV, oh yes, the day Jaws hit the airwaves it was mucho exciting! Right in our own homes, make your own popcorn (in our Joe Namath endorsed popcorn cooker, no less), but they inevitably chopped the film to bits for commercials and "content". To say nothing of butchering the film's aspect ratio, but hey, it was better than NOT seeing it on TV.

[tucco]

Yes, movies premiering on TV was awesome...
I remember when they did each Planet of the Apes movie, all five of them over the course of 5 nites.
That was a HUGE deal in the seventies.....I mean you could only watch what was offered back then,
so it took a lot less for people to get excited back then about media. That's one of the things I miss a lot.
Any old nobody rock band could be set up at a festival and it was like an event.
Logan's Run premiering on TV was exciting. ANY cool movie premiering was exciting....King Kong, etc...
Being able to request a song on the radio and actually hearing the DJ say your name.......
Of course they were gonna play the same hits anyway, but it was still a big deal.

Watching Disney on Sunday nights, knowing all your friends were watching too and talking about it the nest day at school......a good sense of community was in effect due to only three channels being available. Sure not everyone watched the exact same channel every night, but on most nights, certain time slots were being watched by most.
I miss the Seventies somethin awful.....even in the eighties when we got cable, the networks still ruled and people watched the same thing well into the decade.

Did you see the A-Team last night? "check!"

[mkiker2089]

Remember when 3d came back briefly in the 80s? One station in my area had an event and Fast Fare had the glasses for sale then almost a week later another station had one and it was with 7-11 I think. Awesomeness. I think the movie were black and white and that's why it worked because the recent Spy Kids led home 3d does NOT work well at all (including the new Namco game).

Another one, your first computer and first game console.

We got an Atari probably in 84 or 5. It was great and the games were dirt cheap. My dad would get them at the flea market for pennies and most of them were cool. Lost Luggage, Stampede, Defender, that tank / airplane game etc...

First computer, Commodore 128. We used the heck out of it even up till the early 90s but then mostly for games.

[Steve T Power]

CED.

I've still got the player, and a small library of discs...

[tucco]

First computer was an Atari of some sort.

First game console was Pong in the mid seventies.

Then came Atari 2600 of course. They also had games by Activision you could use on the Atari, Kaboom! being my favorite.

Loved the 3D comeback of '82-3....at home and in the theaters.
Channel 56 had movies all the time....We'd get our glasses at Store 24.

*Special mention for the colorization of b&w movies/tv shows around the same time.
I loved seeing that episode of the Honeymooners they colorized.

And also It's a Wonderful Life was cool to see in color......it's not like it's taking the place of the original, it was just plain cool to see in color.

[BrettCullum]

It's kind of funny to think that this message board could be about the same in twenty years...

Remember the 3-D comeback of 2008-9 in both theatres and on TV?

Remember the Nintendo Wii?

Remember when movies came on discs in long boxes called DVDs?

Remember your first Mac?

Remember NetFlix when they came in the mail instead of streaming?

Even though times change... they really kind of don't in a way...

[HGervais]

CED.

I've still got the player, and a small library of discs...

Were they discs enclosed in a plastic case as they were being played? I mean I vaguely remember them but not well enough to be sure of the memory.

[Steve T Power]

CED.

I've still got the player, and a small library of discs...

Were they discs enclosed in a plastic case as they were being played? I mean I vaguely remember them but not well enough to be sure of the memory.

Yup - basically to floppy discs what the Laserdisc was to CD. First home video format to feature Stereo audio

[tucco]

Some new artists record on analogue for that organic sound......most use pro tools (digital)
Even some veteran artists like Kiss are going back to analogue to capture to fresh "lots of headroom" type sound that analogue provides....lots of air and big natural, MUSICAL sounding recordings. Still gets put on CD but the difference is very noticeable from digital masters.

Yeah, audiophiles still swear by a clean vinyl on a pro turntable/system...the separation between instruments is astounding.