25 years ago this month I got on Usenet for the first time. AVL was a favorite newsgroup. I still do Usenet, just for alt.obituaries. I see some usernames here from AVL. I was the guy who pointed out that the LD "The Black Hole" looks better when I run my Sony Wega in 16X9 mode...

I wish ISPs still provided usenet credentials.

Still (although only for SPAM) hosted by Google.

Found my first post from May 19, 2001!
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.video.laserdisc/c/WiCGaAmSy9Y/m/rTNz6cp8z8kJ

Surrounded by Joshua Zyber, Thad Floryan or Kraig. Not a bad crowd!

Web Archive still has the CDJapan final discount sale from that time: http://web.archive.org/web/20010629235043/http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/special/ldsale/

Lots of late releases at JPY 1,500/US$15 at the time.

Julien

I used third party providers. First Ultrafeed and then Easynews which I still have today. Easynews goes back to 2003. You can still read Admins posts about the new LDDb dot com from 2007.

I spent a lot of time at alt.video.laserdisc back when I first discovered the format as a teenager! That group was great! I remember finding the site "Moe's Realm" and educating myself on what the best players were. Good times!