* Posts by Down not across

1987 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2013

Samsung patches Galaxy Note 7 to not explode as two-thirds of phones recalled

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Re: Hmmm

I think the only truly negative thing you can say about them is that they took too long to react when the problem first appeared and we're too quick to say they had identified the cause of the fault.

Too long to react? How so? The device had been out less than a week and (at least in the UK) wasn't yet generally available and only people who had pre-ordered had a device.

I do agree that they were too quick to claim to have identified the problem and shipping new devices out. Given the issue seems to be more likely to be related to charging hardware rather than battery (Li-Ion is rather sensitive to ovevercharging/incorrect charging voltage) the end result would most likely have been the same, full recall.

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Re: Hmmm

Do note 7 owners get any notification on the device itself that it should be recalled?

Yes. Samsung sent notifications to remind to return the device.

Sysadmin flees asbestos scare with disk drive, blank pay cheques, angry builders in pursuit

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Re: Windows NT

I'd say this happened in late eighties which would make DDS/DAT unavailable yet (and believe it or not, DDS/DAT has a pretty good track record in terms of recoverable data).

More likely to have been QIC.

Perhaps I've been unlucky but I've found DDS utterly unreliable, whereas I've never had any issues with Exabyte 8mm drives. Having said that those were mostly EXB-8500/8505 drives. If you venture to the XL, you may start to experience slight loss in reliability especially if you're into reusing tapes more than once or twice as the 160m tape (obviously) has more of a tendency to stretch compared to the 112m.

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Coffee/keyboard

Re: Die Hard VII: Sysadmin

@ I ain't Spartacus

Bastard!

Do you have any idea how many screws are needed to remove this laptop keyboard to attempt to clean it?

Nevertheless, well played Sir. Well played.

It's finally happened: Hackers are coming for home routers en masse

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Re: Time to research alternatives

Yes, and as I understand Asus does comply with GPL. GPL doesn't say it needs to be easy to find...

For Asus there is also the Merlin versus of AsusWRT which has fixes asnd improvements over stock Asus firmware. No more difficult to install than normal firmware update via the web interface.

Open-source storage that doesn't suck? Our man tries to break TrueNAS

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Re: They also do systems for humbler budgets

I opted for nas4free for my HP Microserver.

I recently upgraded from ancient FreeNAS 0.72 (original FreeNAS renamed to nas4free when iXsystems took over FreeNAS) and was pleasantly surprised that it happily imported the ancient softraid mirroed volume allowing me to copy it internally on the box to the newer larger ZFS pool.

Whilst similar, they each have their own emphasis on things. FreeNAS has introduced quite extensive plug-in system which may appeal to some.

The old 0.72 never missed a beat.

LG’s V20 may be the phone of the year. So why the fsck can’t you buy it?

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7 meeellllion?

In the short term, some five to seven million Note 7 owners are looking for an alternative.

But they only shipped about 2.5 million or so of them.

I suspect many Note 7 ex-owners are likely to wait and see what happens at MWC in February/March rather than potentially enter into minimum length contract for something else.

Freeze on refrigerants heats up search for replacements

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Re: Ongoing maintenance

Now that engines have a single belt to run everything, the air con pump is always running, although idle, thus wearing seals and pumps faster and causing more greenhouse gas leaks.

I don't see what single vs multiple belts has to do with it. All cars I've had (both with multiple and single belts) have had clutch on the AC compressor. The compressor only runs when the clutch engages. The pully will always spin whether single or multiple belts.

Galaxy Note 7 US flight ban

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Fair call

Given Samsung has permanently recalled and stopped manufacturing the Note 7, there really is no reason for anyone to still have (other than its bloody fine phone unless you have one that self-combusts) one. My original nor the replacement showed any signs of any issues, but I wasn't going to take the risk (nor did I want to lose 750 quid worth, if you go by list price, of kit.

$100 credit for Note 7 owners

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Rip-off britain

So yanks get compensation. In UK first we were denied Note 5. Now they've pulled Note 7 (not entirely unreasonable, but they could've investigated and no doubt resolved the issue even if it took bit longer than couple of weeks). No additional compensation offered in UK.

Dell to reveal 'micro data centres' for outdoor use

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Re: Déja vu

I think the rather obvious difference is that this Dell contraption is a lot smaller enclosure. I suspect in many situations 20ft container would not be practical.

Galaxy Note 7 flameout: 2 in 5 Samsung fans say they'll never buy from the Korean giant again

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Re: Up in smoke...

Maybe not. I think it will tho. Note 7 was a disaster yes. However it was truly remarkable product the little time I had to use it before having to send it back. Twice.

Most companies have issues with products at time. And yes it was catastrophic, but they dealt with it. I'd rather they had spent bit longer investigating after the first recall before rushing replacements out, but shit happens.

There is nothing in the market that compares to the Note. Unless that gap in the market gets filled by some other manufacturer, then I (and I suspect many other Note users) will buy the next version when (or I suppose if) one becomes available.

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LG make one, I had a play with it in the phone shop a few weeks ago.. Seemed ok.

However I used it for a few minutes and dont really have experience with a note so nothing to compare it to... maybe worth loooking at though.

If you had used Note 7 you would know they're nothing alike.

Given the popularity of Samsung Note, it is strange there is no competition. None at all. I suppose Samsung must have it patented so tight that nobody gets a look in.

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That's fact, what other phablet is there with a built in real stylus? not just some preasure insensitive capacitive junk

There isn't. Nothing out there even close to the capabilities of the Note 7's stylus implementation.

Student software finds new Minor Planet found way out beyond Pluto

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Re: Trump visit?

Would the entertainment be provided by Hotblack Desiato? (no. not the estate agents)

VMS will be ready to run on x86 in 2019!

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Re: You can virtualise OpenVMS already.

Now, can they port it to a Pi ?

Runs pretty well under SIMH on Pi so not much point.

I really should run it like that rather than the real iron, but it ust wouldn't feel the same.

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Pint

Re: Ah, nostagia

I remember the Good Old Daze, supporting remote (very remote) users who wanted (God only knows why) to run ALL-IN-1 (yes, all caps, and with a '1' not a 'ONE') using VT220s over serial/dial-up lines from a VaxCluster in the head office's basement.

Bastard!

Now there is one software package I wish I could forget. Need something stronger than the icon...

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Re: roytrubshaw Woo Hoo!

Now I know the old VMS techies will be breathlessly waiting for VMS clustering on x64 (if you don't know why there will be a legion of dinosaurs ready to post here endlessly as to how good VMS clustering is/was), but I'm looking forward to that ASCII dungeon.

*cough*

Well, we wouldn't need to if someone had come up with better and more reliable clustering. Thing is VAXcluster just works.

Luckily I don't need to look forward to Moria (in its native environment). It's getting bit chilly now anyway so booting up the VAXen just means don't have to turn up heating. Anyway, Moria has been ported to quite a few platforms anyway so you don't really need VMS to run it.

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Re: Woo Hoo!

Used to work on a Bull mainframe system, where a JCL was used and referred to (if generically) as JCL...job control language.

Thanks. I just had a flashback of DPS-8 running GCOS. I did like the fairly secure way processes ran in their own protected virtual memory.

Hey, you know what Samsung is also burning after the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco? $2.3bn

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Re: What are they going to do about people who want to keep them?

I think Samsung ought to push a software update to them that causes them to stop functioning at the end of the month, and lets the owner know this, to enforce the recall. Otherwise this PR disaster will go on for months, and selfish Note 7 owners who don't think about the possible risk to others in crowded areas will continue using them.

They might well do that. As I recall they did declare they were going to push update to the original batch restricting battery charge to 60 % or something. So don't see why they couldn't do someting similar to all of them now.

PC sales sinking almost as fast as Donald Trump's poll numbers

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Re: Replace when failure happens

Normal lifetime of a PC today is around 5 - 8 years, after that the capacitor and other chips wear out and just start to fail.

I have an old box with Abit BP6 and dual celerons. It's been running non-stop (apart from a house move and some power cuts and few quick shutdowns for couple of disk and one PSU replacements) probably for about 15-16 years or so. One the CPU fans is bit sticky and at times doesn't run at all for long periods of time (based on lmsensors). Strangely enough it has not cooked itself even though the machine isn't even in a well ventilated area.

They just don't make stuff like they used to.

Nuke plant has been hacked, says Atomic Energy Agency director

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Re: Umm. PDP-11s? good!

Little tip: there's money to be made if someone can make a converter to plug a new 2015 650W PSU into, that outputs stable noise-free voltage and current for an AT motherboard.

Converters are not exactly rare. Some more expensive ones even provide the -5VDC that started to be phased out in ATX1.2/ATX1.3 (or thereabouts). I can't speak for medical applications, but for ISA it was mostly (IIRC) used by sound cards and alike.

Windows updates? Just trust us, says Microsoft executive

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I suppose force/shove down your throat is kind of promoting

The overall picture is confused though, because the figures Microsoft releases cover both consumer and business, and the consumer upgrade was both free and heavily promoted forced by the company. At Ignite, Microsoft refused to give the press numbers for Windows 10 Enterprise take-up alone.

TFTFY

I'm not surprised they don't want to give numbers on W10 Enterprise take-up. Must be miniscule. You'd have to be utterly bonkers to upgrade anything in enterprise to W10 when W7 actually works and lets work to be done.

Given the increasing tendency for "cloud based" (often in form of some Java in browser abomination) there really is decreasing need for Windows these days. Microsoft could be in for a shock if enterprises start to realise that they could in many (not all of course) situations replace users windows installations with other alternatives.

Command line coffee machine: Hacker shuns app so he can stay at the keyboard for longer

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Re: Why aren't they following the standards ?!

Couldn't agree more. It should also support being integrated into network management system/monitoring via SNMP :-)

Zilog reveals very, very distant heir to the Z80 empire

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Re: Obligatory "When I were a lad..."

we had a 'big multi-user' system with a rack of Z80 boards running CP/M on each board with a central pair of 8" floppies for boot and storage, lots of terminals with lovely TVI 920 (IIRC) terminals and RS232 interface cables ... what more could proper fanbois need? :-)

MP/M of course. :-)

'Please label things so I can tell the difference between a mouse and a microphone'

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Re: Label you, label me, label us all together

I will post this comment as soon as I locate the key called "space".

Never mind space. But I recall instances of "there is no 'any' key on my keyboard"...

Some things really are best forgotten.

Samsung gobbles Siri maker

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Carrie

Oops: Carphone burps up new Google phone details

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Re: Bored, anyone?

+1 for clamshells. Good luck in this brave new world where thinner == better and having the mic close to your mouth will in no way justify having a phone that becomes 2x as thick when you don't use it.

Dunno. Given what has been done in the past (think Motorola Razr2, Nokia N76, etc) it shouldn't be that farfetched to think it would be feasible to construct rather tasty clamshell phone with reasonable battery and bit bigger screen than the examples mentioned.

The server's down. At 3AM. On Christmas. You're drunk. So you put a disk in the freezer

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Re: Same here

It is a yuge gamble, but a stuck spindle might be unstuck if struck at just the right moment with just the right impact, usually just before or immediately after you hear the spindle motor start trying to spin. I do not know if the heads move at all before the platters are spinning -- ISTR they need the spin to keep them "floating" above the media.

I ran into that with Convergent MiniFrame which was fine when the box was running. Problem was if the machine needed to be moved as disks (Micropolis IIRC) had a habit of not spinning up after they'd cooled down. Not without help from good whack on the side anyway. Rubber mallet was useful tool back in those days.

Lubricants have moved on since those days and these days if disks don't spin up it tends to be the motor packing up rather than sticky bearings. Likewise drives' power consumption is bit lower and they don't generate quite as much heat as the old ones.

Samsung: And for my next trick – exploding WASHING MACHINES

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Is it controlled by an old MC6800 CPU? that even had an opcode for HCF.

Not exactly. As I recall HCF was fictional instruction on S/360. Motorola's 6800 did have the DD instruction that read all memory addresses in endless loop (which I think some people referred to as HCF, others as Drope Dead). It was quite useful for debugging hardware. Its been a while, but IIRC it was actually not officially documented as HCF.

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Re: But..

With the damn electronic controls we have to set the controls *every* time we do a load and we have to put up with that damn beepity-boopity noise too.

You make a good point. We used to have Dyson CR01 Memory. It let you store (3 if I recall correctly) programs. So you could just press one of the memory buttons follows by start button and job done. Dyson's service on it was impeccable. The few times it had issues their engineer fixed the issue and replaced whole bunch of other bits as apparently they had improved them. Naturally they reflashed firmware on every visit to the latest one. Sadly, eventually the drum rusted (the split drum was not a good idea in practise and it was appartently the only part that was not manufactured by them so they had no more spares for that.

tldr; If Dyson managed memory settings for programs nearly 20 years ago, why don't current machines with electronic control panels allow you to store at least few programs.

Elon Musk: I'm gonna turn Mars into a $10bn death-dealing interplanetary gas station

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Re: Heart of Gold...

As long as it's a finite improbability, and he's got the kettle on...

Not just kettle. He needs to ensure he has decent tea on board.

US govt pleads: What's it gonna take to get you people using IPv6?

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An IPv8 will have better performance, but I'd prefer an IPv12, preferably turbocharged, so you can squeeze more packets into the duct before burningprocessing them. Also, it would allow for a more parallel burningprocessing of packets...

No no no. There will be lag. Much better to have it supercharged.

(yes yes there are ways to mitigate turbo lag, but never mind that)

6-in-10 punters return their self-destructing Samsung Galaxy Note 7

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Re: Not every phone will explode – only a small percentage

exploding phones aside, has anybody actually got one of these that doesnt explode? if so...is it any good?

Yes. It is actually very good. Call quality is fantastic. The pen works very well. Never had any issue with the first one, but did exchange just to be sure and the exchange was relatively painless (replacement ready to pick up next day).

Having said that unless you really want the pen and/or iris scanner (and 0.2" larger screen) , S7 edge is probably better choice. Nearly same specs, still MicroUSB instead of USB C (although Samsung does provide adapters in the sales package).

Windows printer bug fixed

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Re: Printers. Pah!

Well, printing is only arcane on Windows. On UNIX systems, printing is a non-issue, basically thanks to Apple's CUPS, which is used by all except Windows.

I solved that issue few decades ago by ensuring all my printers do PostScript. If all else fails, generic PostScript driver will do a fine job. If one is not available most formats can be translated into PS otherways and then sent to printer raw. Yes, even on Windows.

Oracle execs get that shrinking feeling

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Bring back the affordable entry level products and reduce the licensing complexity and people will come back.

You sure about that? Forcing SMBs to try out alternatives may have opened their eyes. There are other products out there, many of which quite good.

Smelly toilets, smokers and the Kardashians. Virgin Media staff grill top brass

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Healthy veggie brekkie

'Healthy Veggie' wanted to see some healthy eating choices "in ALL of our canteens" adding there were no healthy breakfast options in one of the canteens. "Are there any plans to change that?"

"Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Breakfast will no longer be served."

More seriously, there is always the option of eating breakfast before you leave for work...

Days are numbered for the Czech Republic

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If they had a monarchy they could be the United Crown of Bohemia Moravia and Silesia, UC for short, or SK in Czech.

Given the history, I doubt SK would go down well as short in Czech...

Cisco preps the P45s for 500 unlucky UK staffers

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Profits up? What should we do?

In the 12 months to the end of July this year, Cisco banked $10.7bn (£8.2bn) in profit, up 20 per cent on the year-ago period, from sales of $48.7bn (£37bn), up three per cent.

Profits are up. What should we do? Thank our workforce and maybe dish out a bonus or something for the good work? Nah, lets fire a whole bunch instead.

Seems to be the current MO for most companies. Not helped by the chase of perpetual growth.

Pull the plug! PowerPoint may kill my conference audience

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Re: Oh Dear

Shrug.

My upgrade from an older S4 to 7 went very smooth. Connect the two devices with USB cable, wait a little bit and Smasung SmartSwitch copied everything (except bits I de-selected) from the old device to the new one.

Oi, Apple fanbois. Your beloved Jesus Phones are pisspoor for disabled users

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Re: Have you seen how you set up an Apple iPad?

But yeah, the use of skeuomorphic sliders or dials for entering numerical data (alarm clock settings, current date etc) instead of a virtual numberpad in Android is irritating (can't speak for iOS).

Quite often (no, not necessarily always) you can tap the number and get keypad popup to enter the number with (in Android, no, I can't speak for iOS either).

If we can't fix this printer tonight, the bank's core app will stop working

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Simply deleting the file wouldn't work because the program was still running; until it closed its handle on the file the disk space wouldn't be released. Deleting any files that could be spared didn't help much because the space released would be filled by the elephant in the room almost immediately.

In which case the old favourite on those situations, cp /dev/null offending file, probably wouldn't have helped either.

Eventually it got arm-wrestled into submission. I like to install Unix systems with multiple partitions, especially keeping directories that might grow, such as /usr/spool or /var separate.

Always. If nothing else, at least /var should be separate. It really annoys me that many flavours these days try to "helpfully" make installation "easy" and install everything into single partition, which is just disaster waiting to happen.

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BTW line printers were really awesome for doing charatcer based artwork on.. If you could handle the noise.

Yes they were. Long time ago I did a stint at Nixdorf maintenance department. Plenty of printed ASCII art on the walls as those were used to test printers.

I learnt to have healthy respect for line printers as they will make you pay severely if you don't show them the respect they deserve.

‘Penultimate’ BlackBerry seen on 'do not publish' page as fire sale begins

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Re: Wrong

The next step will be selling off the IP and closing the doors. This company is so irrelevant any more why do they even bother? A qwerty phone? really? Who uses this stuff?

Admittedly been quite some time since I last had a closer look, but QNX is (or at least used to be) rather good real-time OS which should attract fair bit of business.

Going the rebrand route instead of manufacturing the hardware is not necessarily daft, however they seem to have decided that continuing using the software stack on top of QNX was too costly (and/or too much work) and decided to take the "easy route" of bulding on top of Android losing most of what differentiated them in the market.

Who uses QWERTY phone? Fair number of people do (or would if suitable phone was available).

I'd love to get a modern version of my Communicator 9500 (RA-2) with high res screen, modern high-capacity (non exploding, if possible) battery.

WTF ... makes mobile phone batteries explode?

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Or... They could have made the phones slightly thicker, and enabled them to use a more powerful, unsqueezed battery in the first place.

And for really crazy talk, they could've just had the back cover removable (say, attached with screws and rubber seal to retain the IP rating) rather than glued on and they could have just shipped/replaced batteries instead of whole phones.

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Re: "You may now use electronic devices.."

"..except not if it's a Galaxy Note."

A real announcement on a recent flight.

Bit of a kneejerk reaction. Based on reports so far the failure rate has been fraction of a percent.

Still, we're talking about a plane so better to be safe than sorry.

Replacements are have already been shipping (in UK at least) so hardly an issue much longer.

Lenovo denies claims it plotted with Microsoft to block Linux installs

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Re: Then do some real world trolling

I find its a good was to entertain yourself when you have no choice but to accompany the missus to the mall.

Admit it. You're hoping to get banned from the mall not just one store.

Galaxy Note 7 short stack

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Re: Most people aren't listening to the warnings

since most people are stupid and will think "it won't happen to me".

Which really defies any logic. Why take the risk with rather expensive device when free replacement is offered?

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Re: Maybe in fact

However, didn't Samsung say they'd replace them with a NEW Note 7? Granted, a month old device is still pretty "new", but class action lawsuits have been filed over less...

Yes, Samsung have said they're replacing with NEW Note 7. I'd say if you're being stupid enough not to contact for replacement, it would be perfectly acceptable for Samsung to replace the the refuseniks' phones (if they ever get them replaced) with a refurbished one. Let's face it they will have rather large number of refurbished <1month old phones available soon.

Here in blighty at least CPW is apparently getting replacement stock in on 22nd.

Samsung wants your exploding Galaxy Note 7. Have a new one instead

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Re: Just looked at the price

Also, nobody wants to be seen with a Windows Phone. You will be the eternal laughing stock, they guy that buys LaserDisc, HD-DVD and other failed tech in bargain basement fire sales.

So what did you use before DVD if not LaserDisc? VHS tapes ?

Also I much preferred LaserDics to DVD after DVD came out. Much better and more natural picture, with the benefit of digital multichannel sound. Best of both worlds really.