Popular Science | The $580 Million Vinyl Movie Disaster (Selectavision) @popularscience | Uploaded June 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
You've probably got a ton of VHS tapes in a box somewhere -- but why *don't* you have any Capacitance Electronic Discs (CED)?. Despite being an incredible and unique technology that basically used records as home video discs, the RCA Selectavision had... a whole lot of problems.
The history of technology is filled with great ideas that had fatal, and often unknowable, flaws. And although the RCA Selectavision underappreciated its core audience, arrived much too late, and spelled doom for one of the century's most important tech companies, it did give us the first FMV games.
Did the RCA Selectavision earn its place in the annals of retro technology by being innovative, or by being a $580 million mistake?
YES.
Partner with us: youtube@popsci.com
Special thanks to TechnologyConnections: youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections
#retrotech #popularscience #history #retro
You've probably got a ton of VHS tapes in a box somewhere -- but why *don't* you have any Capacitance Electronic Discs (CED)?. Despite being an incredible and unique technology that basically used records as home video discs, the RCA Selectavision had... a whole lot of problems.
The history of technology is filled with great ideas that had fatal, and often unknowable, flaws. And although the RCA Selectavision underappreciated its core audience, arrived much too late, and spelled doom for one of the century's most important tech companies, it did give us the first FMV games.
Did the RCA Selectavision earn its place in the annals of retro technology by being innovative, or by being a $580 million mistake?
YES.
Partner with us: youtube@popsci.com
Special thanks to TechnologyConnections: youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections
#retrotech #popularscience #history #retro
