DataPlay: The futuristic optical disc format that time forgot

In 2001 the future seemed bright for DataPlay when the tiny optical data storage format won Best of Show at CES. Less than two years later it was all over. Watch the video to find out what happened and to see a demo of this elusive format on a rare machine.

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[romanrm]

I feel one of these days Techmoan could pull a prank on everyone, by inventing a fictional format and doing a full episode about it. And nobody would know the difference. Because some of this stuff is just too crazy.

[brideoflister]

There is nothing more 2001 than a crazy weird dead portable music player that plays Aviril and Outkast.

[thesexybatman]

_"This is a fascinating little gadget. It'll replace CDs soon. Guess I'll have to buy the 'White Album' again."_
-Agent K, Men In Black (1997).

[TuckOfIron]

So crazy seeing my band's first album on one of these at 8:43.
I wonder who these belonged to.

[FrankOlsonTwins]

This video is already more successful than the DataPlay format!

[amnottabs]

Avril Lavigne, plastic devices with bad ergonomics and the "thinkpad" coat on them, and lasers dying... this video resumed my high school life pretty well

[daffiebarrios]

The tiny discs are adorable. I can imagine eating this as a child in the early 2000s.

[CannibalClown]

The blank DataPlay discs that Mat showed off there had something that caught my eye- the album "Wall of Spears" by Thorr-Axe came out in 2011! Meaning the person that originally owned the discs actually burned the album onto one of them in 2011 at the very earliest. Just thought it was weird and kind of interesting

[ellioron]

You know, you could just start making these formats up and I'd believe it whole heartedly

[peteranderson]

"We even watched a prototype die doing what it loved: playing 'Sk8er Boi'". Well, we all have our aspirations, I suppose.

[ronch]

11:52 - I felt a tinge of panic and hopelessness when you said there's really nothing you can do about that rubberized plastic material. I mean, yes I have removed this icky material from several devices (all post-2010 so I dunno why they're still using it long after this device you showed here) with isopropyl alcohol, but somehow I was kinda hoping something could actually be done to restore the rubbery surface. Thanks for dashing my hopes into a million pieces!! 😩

But yeah, I understand. It's the shi**iest material ever to be put on an electronic gadget.

[leonoliveira]

This IS a pretty hefty disc for its size. It actually looks like some nice retro future reference material for anyone wanting to make a sci-fi story.

[TechnologyConnections]

Without doing any research whatsoever (because I'm just feeling that dangerous), I'm guessing this used a red laser diode? I must admit that getting 250 MB onto one side of a disc that small seems like a mild impossibility, and surely it must have required DVD-like pit density. In fact it almost seems like it might have needed more.
And wow is that a weird looking laser pickup. It's too bad the mechanism is sealed as this is really intriguing! And the color of the disc suggests maybe it was magneto-optical like MD? The world may never know! What a delightfully obscure thing--thanks for such a great effort with this!

[st-gelaisrene]

I think I saw a scene in Men in Black with this disc. It was inside the alien room of future copied tech "... it will replace CDs..."

[christian]

This reminds me of that scene from MIB where Tommy lee Jones brings up a tiny disc that would replace CD’s “ I’m going to have to buy the white album again”

[freshprinceofcharlotte]

"Died doing what it loved, playing skater boy" 😂😂😂

[zappawoman]

I remember how amazed I was when the web designer at my works brought in an MP3 player. "No moving parts!" he kept saying and I couldn't understand how it worked at the time! I think it was very expensive, a few hundred pounds back in the day. My husband was an electronic engineer and he explained the concept to me. However, we're quite used to MP3 players and flash drives, things which have no moving parts and it's all just normal to us now.

[almed]

The tiny being inside me wants this so much.

[iriskrane]

Me at the machine: “why’d you have to go make things so complicated?”

[Frigid_Kev]

Never thought I'd ever see a disc smaller than UMDs