CED Digest Vol. 6 No. 11

CED Digest Vol. 6 No. 11 • 3/17/2001
20 Years Ago In CED History:

March 19, 1981:
* Australia's largest corporate loss ever is reported by its leading
automotive firm. General Motors Holden's Ltd. lost $152 million in 1980.

March 20, 1981:
* The first boat load of DeLorean automobiles departs the harbor in
Belfast, Northern Ireland bound for the United States. This is the
$25,000 stainless steel body sports car made famous in the CED title
"Back to the Future" where the vehicle had a "flux capacitor" installed
for time travel. Interesting that two of the biggest technological white
elephants of the 1980's were introduced at nearly the same time.
* Jean Harris is sentenced to 15 years to life for slaying of Scarsdale
Diet Dr. Herman Tarnower.
* Future CED title in widespread theatrical release: The Postman Always
Rings Twice.

March 21, 1981:
* "Keep on Loving You" (CED) by REO Speedwagon becomes No. 1 U.S.
single.
* Some RCA dealers such as Macy's in New York City set up their
VideoDisc kiosks a day early in violation of RCA's policy.



http://www.cedmagic.com/mem/milestones/mem285.html

March 22, 1981:
* The RCA SelectaVision VideoDisc system is officially launched at 5,000
dealers across the United States. The first player is the SFT100 and the
initial catalog contains 100 titles as listed below (although only about
half the titles were in distribution on launch day, and the Demo Disc
and Service Test Disc were not listed in the catalog).

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Absent Minded Professor, The
Adam's Rib
As We Grow
Bad News Bears, The
Bears and I, The
Big Fights, Vol. 1: Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fights
Black Stallion, The [monophonic]
Boys From Brazil, The
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid [RCA]
Candleshoe
Caring for your Newborn
Casablanca
Charlie Brown Festival, A
Charlotte's Web
Citizen Kane
Clarence Darrow
College Football Classics, Vol. 1
Count of Monte-Cristo, The
Demo Disc: RCA VideoDiscs
Dirty Dozen, The (2) [RCA]
Disney Cartoon Parade, Vol. 1
Easter Parade
Eat to the Beat-- Blondie
Escape From Alcatraz
Evening with the Royal Ballet
Family Entertainment Playhouse, Vol. 1
Fiddler on the Roof (2)
Foul Play
French Connection, The [RCA]
G. I. Blues
Gigi [RCA]
Gimme Shelter [monophonic]
Giselle
Godfather, The (2)
Graduate, The
Grateful Dead, The
Grease [monophonic]
Great Locomotive Chase, The
Hamlet (2)
Harder They Come, The
Heaven Can Wait
Heidi [RCA]
Hello, Dolly! (2) [RCA]
Henry V (2)
High Noon
HUD
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The
Jacques Cousteau, Vol. 1: Sharks/Singing Whales
Jesus of Nazareth (4)
Julia Child: The French Chef, Vol. 1
Kidnapped
King Kong [1933]
Lady Sings the Blues (2)
Laura [RCA]
Longest Day, The (2) [RCA]
Longest Yard, The
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (2)
Love Bug, The
Love Story
M*A*S*H [RCA]
Meet Me in St. Louis [RCA]
Movie Movie
Muppet Movie, The [Dolby Stereo Label]
New York Yankees Miracle Year: 1978
Night at the Opera, A
Ninotchka
North By Northwest (2) [RCA] 
Old Yeller
On the Town [RCA]
Our Town
Paper Moon
Patton (2) [monophonic]
Philadelphia Story, The
Planet of the Apes [RCA]
Play It Again, Sam
Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown
Red Shoe's, The (2)
Rocky [RCA]
Romeo and Juliet (2)
Sands of Iwo Jima
Saturday Night Fever [monophonic]
Service Test Disc
Seven Year Itch, The [RCA]
Shane
Show Boat
Singin' in the Rain [RCA]
Stalag 17
Star Trek - The Motion Picture (2)
Star Trek: Vol.1, The Menagerie
Star Trek: Vol.2, City/Battlefield
Starting Over
Sunset Boulevard
Super Bowl XIV: Steelers vs. Rams
Ten Commandments, The (2)
Terrytoons Volume 1 Featuring Mighty Mouse
Thing, The [1951]
To Russia...With Elton
Tora! Tora! Tora! (2) [RCA]
Tut: the Boy King/The Louvre
Victory at Sea
World of Wildlife, Vol. 1: Snow Geese/Leopard

* A group of 12 Green Berets arrives in El Salvador, thereby raising to
54 the number of U.S. military advisors in that country.
* The previously announced increase in the first class U.S. letter rate
from 15 to 18 cents takes effect.

March 23, 1981:
* President Ronald Reagan issues a proclamation that April 14 will be
designated Pan American Day.

March 24, 1981:
The White House reports that Vice President George Bush has been
selected by President Reagan to head a special crisis management team.
Secretary of State Alexander Haig publicly expresses his "lack of
enthusiasm."

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Topy44" <topy44>
To: <digest@cedmagic.com>
Subject: looking for starwars ep 6 - return of the jedi (who isnt...)
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 04:02:50 +0100

hi
im looking for starwars ep 6 - return of the jedi
well, who isnt looking for it actually? :)
anyway, if you have one for sale or if you see one somewhere, please
send me a mail
another thing is that i have startet a little project to build a remote
control for my non-remote controlled unit,
ill post my results to the digest
 
cya
Topy44 (<mailto:topy44@emuextrem.de>topy44@emuextrem.de)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Zax (tommy W.)
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 09:17:26 -0500 (EST)
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: CED Player & CED's for sale

Hi:
  I have a collection of CED's and an RCA Selectavision SGT-200that is
in working order but there seems to be a problem after the
loading--sometimes the disk plays and sometimes it doesn't.  A list of
disks follows: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 2001: A Space Odyssey (2
disks), Absent-Minded Professor, Airplane, Altered States, American
Graffitti, Amityville Horror, An Officer and a Gentleman (2 disks),
Apple Dumpling Gang, Back Roads, Bad News Bears, Black Sunday, Blue
Lagoon, Blue Thunder, Breathless, Brigadoon, Casablanca, The Champ,
Chariots of Fire, Charlie Brown Festival, China Syndrome, Disney Cartoon
Parade Vol 1, Dr Zhivago (2 disks), Dressed to Kill, DTV, Dumbo, Falcon
and the Snowman (2 disks), Fame (2 disks), Fiddler on the Roof (2
disks), Final Conflict, Flashdance, Godfather (2 disks), Good, the Bad
and the Ugly (2 disks), Goodbye Girl, Grease (2 disks), The Great
Caruso, Guys and Dolls (2 disks), He-Man and the Masters of the
Universe, Jane Fonda's Workout, Jaws, Kotch, Kramer vs Kramer, MASH,
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Moscow on the Hudson, Muppet Movie,
Network, North Dallas Forty, On Golden pond, Ordinary People (2 disks),
Play it Again Sam, Postman Always Rings Twice, Protocol, Raiders of the
lost Ark, Richard Pryor Live in Concert,Risky Business, Rocky, Rocky 2,
Rocky 3, Romancing the Stone, Sands of Iwo Jima, Shane, Singin in the
Rain, Six Pack, Shazam, A Star is Born (2 disks), Starting Over, Staying
Alive, Stir Crazy, Stripes, Sudden Impact, Table For Five, Terry Toons
Vol 1, Tom and Jerry, Tootsie, True Confessions, Turk 182, the Verdict
(2 disks), WarGames, Without a Trace, Wizard of Oz, young Doctors in
Love..Are there any offers?  zax@webtv.net...Thanks for reading

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: stephen_orme
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: Re: Where in the UK?
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 15:07:50 +0000

On Sun, 11 Mar 2001 06:26:25 -0800, you wrote:

>Subject: Where in the UK?"
>From: Simon Angling <simon>
>To: <digest@cedmagic.com>
>
>Can anyone point me in the direction of a second hand player and/or
>disks in the UK.

>Cheers, Simes

I'm in the same position as you. Have you found a player yet? I see
CED hardware and software for sale on ebay.com, but never anything on
the UK co.uk site. I wouldn't mind shipping disks from the US, but I
imagine that the player is quite delicate and that a journey across
the Atlantic might not be good for it; in addition it would be heavy
and therefore expensive too.

I guess CED never took off over here, just as LD didn't. So perhaps
NTSC discs will be easier to get hold off, in which case a US player
would be the best way to go? Our tvs should cope with an NTSC signal,
so we will only need a transformer to drop the UK 240v to the US 110v.

Does anyone know of a UK source for CED disks and players?

Thanks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 19:32:44 -0800
To: digest@cedmagic.com
From: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: etown.com goes bust

Hello All:

I was sorry to see etown.com to be among the many dot coms that have
gone bankrupt since the start of the year. This was a consumer
electronics review site notable for being "retro friendly" by also
publishing articles about past technology like CED. I've noticed their
site has been sporadically available over the past few weeks and thought
it might be useful to post their articles of interest to CED collectors
while there is still a possibility of getting into the site. I couldn't
get into their site when I posted this, so if it doesn't come back, you
should still be able to find these articles for a while at Google by
pasting the article titles into the search box. When the search results
come up, click on the CACHED link rather than the link to etown.com.
There's a Google search on the CED Magic search page that returns 100
results:



http://www.cedmagic.com/home/ced-magic-search.html

Here's a news story on Etowns demise:

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-4822930.html

And here are the titles and URL's of Etowns articles:

DISPOSABLE TECH, PART 1: MP3 FOREVER?
http://www.etown.com/columns/features.jhtml?articleID=1057

DISPOSABLE TECH, PART 2: TALE OF THE TAPE
http://www.etown.com/columns/features.jhtml?articleID=1163

DISPOSABLE TECH, PART 3: EVEN DIGITAL ISN'T FUTURE-PROOF
http://www.etown.com/columns/features.jhtml?articleID=1164

DISPOSABLE TECH, PART 4: VIDEO VANISHING ACTS
http://www.etown.com/columns/features.jhtml?articleID=1250

DISPOSABLE TECH, PART 5: MORE VIDEO VICTIMS
http://www.etown.com/columns/features.jhtml?articleID=1262

DVD: PART 1
URL not found

DVD: THE LESSONS OF VHS, PART 2
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=371

DVD: RECORDING DOES MATTER, PART 3
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=372

DVD: SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE, PART 4
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=373

CIRCUIT CITY TO DVD OWNERS: DROP DEAD
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=326

SAM'S SLAMS: HAS DIVX WON?
http://www.etown.com/columns/columns.jhtml?articleID=141

FARWELL DIVX
http://www.etown.com/columns/features.jhtml?articleID=724

WHO INVENTED TV?
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=801

RCA UNBOUND? PART 1
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=950

RCA UNBOUND? PART 2: THE WEB IN EVERY TV
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=951

RCA UNBOUND? PART 3: DVD, PHONES, ACCESSORIES
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=953

RCA GOES DIGITAL -BIG TIME- SAY BYE-BYE, ANALOG
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=1560

THIS DVD WILL NOW SELF-DESTRUCT: SPECTRADISC
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=1970

RCA, RADIOSHACK RENEW VOWS
http://www.etown.com/news/article.jhtml?articleID=2844
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