Last year, after 10 years of hearding about LaserDisc and wanting me such stuff, I got me discs and players. 2 players: one P.A.L. and one N.T.S.C. I was quite a lucky fellow to get me stuff like that at not very much money, reguarding the fact that L.D.'s are almost uknown in Romania (I don't think they where more then 1,000-2,000 machines around here).
The P.A.L. player I found in a second-hand store that brings stuff from Germany. Went looking for old radios and I got the ideea to look for a L.D. player... there where 2: one that didn't want to read C.D.'s and one that did want. I manage to negociate the price (didn't had enough money at me) and bought it. A P.A.L. disc I managed to grab only about 3 weeks later form another city. The player is a "Telefunken" V.D.P.-500 ("Pioneer" C.L.D.-1600 clone - probably even manufactured by "Pioneer")
The N.T.S.C. player I got from a guy nearly my age that had it from it's father who got it from U.S.A. Since the player didn't worked properly, I got very cheap. I cleande the lens, got some grease on the mechanism and made it better. The guy haves disc too and I manage to buy a few (money problems). The player is an 120 Volt only "Panasonic" LX-101 made in June of 1991.
I was also lucky to find 3 discs at another person from Romania (he had many more in the past, but gave away - the 3 ones reamined between vynil records) - got quite cheap "Pink Floyd - live at Pompeii" and "Miles Davis: Miles in Paris" + bonus "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" (very bad master) - al 3 P.A.L. discs. Some one from U.K. helped me to get some discs - bought them from ebay, send 'em to his adress and the somobedoy got 'em in Romania (so postage was cheaper). I got me also an LaserJuke disc from Germany (I would have got 2, but the postage was to expensive).
Demo discs are my dreams, but the '80's one presenting the techonlogy are very hard to find and usually aren't cheap. And I do want that 1981 Summer Sears Catalogue. A.B.B.A. is on my dream list too. And one day I hope I will get me an working "Pioneer" player with He-Ne laser.
I sometimes wonder how this techonology survived without becoming mainstream... some people really love it!