The Matrox 2-Person Lift Military Surplus Combination 286/Laserdisc Player.
What is it?
It is a proprietary design 286.
It is also a Laserdisc player.
It is heavy. It weighs 43 pounds.
A number of them were made for the U.S. Military. The words "PROPERTY OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT" are burned into the BIOS memory and displayed on bootup.
They were designed and put together by Matrox.
Matrox is based in Canada.
One assumes that the U.S. government paid for them, though no definite evidence of this exists.
Those of you who wish to write your congresspersons now, please do so. This page isn't going anywhere.
To resume, they were made by Matrox.
They came with remote controls.
They came with software to control the laserdisc player.
They came with controller pads to run the software.
They came with two buttons. One labeled Eject/Close, and another labeled Play.
Matrox no longer makes laserdisc players.
They each have a dial on the back indicating hours of use, with 10000 at the high end.
No one knows what happens when the dial reaches 10000.
They were "used" by the military. My dial reads between 0 and 1000 hours. Closer to 0.
At some point the military decided they were no longer of use.
Perhaps they lost the remote controls.
And the software.
And the controller keypads.
They certainly didn't include these things when they sold them off.
In late 1996 a business offered a consignment of them for sale via Auctionboard.com, an online auction service.
The bidding rarely went over $150.
The bidding started at $150.
To my knowledge no one else actually bought one.
Auctionboard no longer auctions business consignments.
Before I undertook such a rash decision as paying $150 for something I couldn't possbily need, I called up Matrox and obtained the following information:
The players work. They were made to military specifications. Trust us. They work.
They support CAV and CLV laserdisc formats but. . .
They have standard stereo audio and video outputs but. . .
You can view the laserdisc output on a VGA monitor via the 286 but. . .
They do respond to remote controls but. . .
They even have a SCSI hard drive with a SCSI controller but. . .
That was enough for me. I didn't have a 286 or a laserdisc player, or
anything that claimed it was property of the U.S. government, and come
to think of it these were three things that I had been dying to have
ever since I came to think of it. I could kill one bird with three stone!
(Yes I know three stone is only 42 pounds, but it's close enough for the pun ok?)
About a month later, I hurriedly and somewhat angrily called Matrox back and obtained the following information:
. . . they don't support some of the newer audio formats (THX).
. . . the plugins are underneath a panel in the back which is SECURED WITH SCREWS!
. . . only with the software, unless you have the Mark II, which you don't.
. . . only on secret military RC frequencies which you don't know much less could get a universal remote for.
. . . both controller and drive were made before the SCSI standard was officially released, or indeed agreed upon.
. . . it does work, doesn't it?
I have since remarkbly curbed my tendency to cut people off in mid-sentence.
That's about all you need to know about what it is.
You are wrong! I need to know more! I want to read this again.
Despite knowing what it is, I am still curious what good it is.
I do not admit to having one, but would still like to know what I can do with it.
I do not have a back button on my browser.
I think this is getting much too silly, but I would still like to see Gabe's Homepage