CD's celebrate 25 years on August 17th, 1982

CD is 25 years old! (Rlslog)

An obsolete form of optical media known as the “Compact Disc” celebrates its 25th birthday tomorrow. In a press release issued Thursday, Philips said a staggering 200 billion of them were produced (194 billion accounted for by AOL signup disks) since the first one was stamped off the production line on Aug. 17, 1982. The first CD to be manufactured at the plant was “The Visitors” by ABBA. By the time CDs were introduced on the market in November 1982, a catalogue of around 150 titles – mainly classical music – had been produced. The first CDs and CD players – including Philips’ CD100 – were introduced in Japan in November, followed by a US and European market introduction in March of 1983.

The Compact Disc was created from a partnership between Philips and Sony. Philips created most of the core technology while Sony helped with digital encoding for smooth playback. The two would later square off against each other in the 1990s as Sony’s MiniDisc went in direct competition with Philips’ Digital Compact Cassette. Though MiniDisc gained more widespread adoption, neither format was considered a success. At the time, there was no emerging technology really competing against the CD format. Its biggest battle was against vinyl records, an institution by the 1980s, whih still remains the longest-running home audio format in the United States. Damn, do you still remember these times of new games and appz on tens of floppy discs and 1.44 MB archives? I feel a bit of nostalgy here…