CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[firebird0_10]

Well I know it has been 25 years since the RCA CED players have been discontinued.Recently I startedto collect these movies.After I discovered cedmajic.com there were some pictures of the men and women that made the CED come true.Also happily knowing that this is American Technology made me feel even closer to my selectavision.Technology has advanced jobs grow scarce.And sometimes I wonder what happened to us as Americans.I know that i may not make sense but it is time we start doing for ourselves and not depend on others technology.I wonder where now today can I get a American made top to bottom Television? I didn't even know that RCA isn't really even RCA.To make this long story short though I just wanted to thank The men and women who worked at RCA and the Selectavison plant.It seems like you all had afun time bringing this technology to the market and home here in America.

[7jlong]

There is a long, long list of books that addresses exactly what happened to America in terms of manufacturing.

It may rest your troubled soul, though, to know that many of the major inventions that are still impacting the planet - digital computers, television, electrophotgraphic duplication (Xerox), cellular phone technology (first proposed by Bell Labs), the backbone of the internet (arpanet), etc. were born right here in America.

The list goes on, and the innovation continues.

I worry a little bit about the thrust of your note, and should mention that as a group we don't do much finger-pointing and blaming about "the state of things". It was Selectavision, after all, that effectively brought down RCA and left them wide open for the RCA-isn't-RCA condition that you speak of (see Margaret Graham's excellent book).

A very similar thing happened to Polaroid - they bet it all on a technology (PolaVision instant movies) that was a day late and a few million dollars short. Stripped Edwin Land of his title (and basically his company) when it failed. Hobbled along for 20 more years until they finally collapsed into a shell that now sticks its name onto TVs and canceled all silver-based photo technologies.

It happens.

Maybe my view is a bit biased. I work at MIT and see hundreds and hundreds of daily examples of folks "not depending on others technology".

That said, I think there's room for all players when it comes to innovation. Bring it on. Buying a beautifully-made camera or television or computer parts from a company that kicked an American company's pants on keeping manufacturing costs down and quality up is a trade-off I'm willing to accept.

[firebird0_10]

I guess that you are right.I didn't mean to seem like I am pointing fingers here.Maybe i need to go back to my books.I sure wish that I could invent something that could change the world.

[RT9342]

I guess over the years, I sometimes don't really think about it and take it for granted, but it is interesting to know that RCA's CED players were designed and manufactured here in America, not Japan or China. Although most of the stuff you find now days is in fact from China or India, you can still sometimes find American-made stuff, and I wish more people would look harder and buy American when they can. I think that would probably help our economy more than anything - as long as these stupid companies don't keep doing what I see too often, which is: take the items that I buy because they are made in U.S.A., and start making them in Mexico or China. But just look around - many pencils, pens, and paper products, for example, are still made in America, but if you just grab whatever's sitting on the eye-level shelf at Wal-Mart, it might be from China or Brazil. I've even found American-made flash drives at a local Best Buy! That's the kind I bought. And I've seen American-made RAM for PCs, American-made cables - I even bought American-made telephones for the house. Just look around. Sometimes you may end up having to stop shopping at one store and shop at another. For example, almost all of the tools at Home Depot are made in China, but if you go to Lowe's, they have a lot of tools that are made in U.S.A.