The first CD
ABBA may have been the first CD in England, but it was definitely not among the first CDs sold in the U.S. There were 10 CDs introduced with the first CD player sold in the U.S., the Sony CDP-101. The 10 CDs consisted of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, Miles Davis' The Man With the Horn and 8 classical CDs including Glenn Gould's Bach: The Goldberg Variations. I bought these three CDs when I bought my CDP-101, which is serial number 33 of the first 100 imported into the U.S. Four locations in the U.S. each received 25, and I drove from San Diego to Los Angeles for the privilege of paying $899 for it. The CDP-101 stood as the benchmark for many years before better players came out.

It was an interesting time, with the superior dynamic range of CDs you could hear things in recordings that would go unnoticed in vinyl records. Orchestral members had to learn not to move their feet and had to very quietly turn the pages of the music score or these would show up on the CD recording; the art of recording had to be revolutionized. My CDP-101 still works great, although it is now quietly passing the years in the closet. I've wondered if a museum would be a better place for it.

Paul

Breakfast tech
Hi,

My in-box is full of spam and bacn, I burn my cds using Toast and get my podcasts with Juice.

Can anyone think of any other breakfast computing items? Or any other meal, for that matter.

Love the podcast!

Gavin
Robotics student, University of Essex, U.K.

I can't believe you people
Glenn from Chehalis, Washington here;

I really cannot believe you would continue to ignore my rants about how bad the Comcast TiVo is. You keep saying how good TiVo is, but have for some reason refused to play, or read my previous rants about how bad the Comcast version is.

Comcast and TiVo really did a horrible job. My box keeps getting full of Simpsons episodes, even though I only want the show that plays at 8 p.m. Sundays, which [is] when it normally plays.

But nooooo, TiVo has to record every episode that airs on every channel. I had to stop record The Simpsons so I could get my other shows.

Recently I started recording the "new episodes" of Doctor Who ensuring I choose the new-shows-only option, and what happened? Can you guess? It recorded three old episodes.

Come on, Tom and Molly, read this e-mail. I know it is hard to believe that your beloved TiVo would do something bad, but they did. They should have worked on it a little more.

All right buzzer, that's all for now.

Love the show. (Is this what I need to say to be played or read? Everyone does it now.)

Why no DVR for U.S.
Hi Buzz,

Long time listener of BOL but first time writer to BOL. I was listen to episode 545 on my way to work today. About the PS3 TV add-on and your discussing that it is Hollywood fault why the PS3 TV in not coming to U.S. As I read on Kotaku blog, Phil Harrison (VP of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) explains that in U.S. do not have over-the-air digital TV. And that why it could take long time before it can be sold in U.S.

The problem with the DVR is that the U.S. doesn't have terrestrial digital television yet, so while some cities like San DIego have it, not nearly support in the U.S. to make it worth the effort for Sony. When that changes, and it will, Sony will be on the ball, Harrison said.

Best regards, and I love the show every day.
Martin Stenhård
Sweden

Or is it this?
The reason PS3 is going to support PAL DVR has less to do with PAL and more to do with PAL regions using DVB-T tuners. Compare the country list that is getting PS3 DVR with the list here. If CableCard wasn't tied up by such a bunch of jerks over at CableLabs, maybe we would get cool digital receivers. Indirectly, I think one could blame DRM and content ownership for keeping DVB out of the U.S. and the sorry state of CableCard.

First FPS was....
...is Maze War.

I played this as a kid in Xerox PARC with the son of David Liddle, who helped invent the Ethernet and the Xerox Star. It was the coolest game, decades ahead of its time.

Kevin