Disc disc revolution

A history of the CD appears on the Silicon User site this week.  It's a fascinating, too-brief read.

Like many inventions, the compact disk emerged at the intersection of several other developments:

it was actually a merger and adaptation of many different technologies including the laser (1960), digital recording (1967) and optical disc technology (1970s).

What a timeline to think through: the first CD player went on sale in 1982, and the first album a Billy Joel one.  CD-ROMs in 1985.   In 1988 vinyl started losing to the CD; in 1989 CD-Rs are unleashed.

When it started, only two factories made the things.  Now not only can most computers pump 'em out, but few do, since it's too old.  How rapidly, how drastically history moves.

(via Slashdot)

Comments

[Lester Spence]

Remember some of the arguments used to get consumers to move from vinyl? Sound quality was one...but indestructability was the other.

[Brian]

In 1988 vinyl started losing to the CD, but lately it's mounted a counterattack -- fueling decent profits for niche music vendors:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2119272,00.html

[Lester Spence]

Yep. Using some of the same rhetoric about superior sound quality (part of this is about supposed "warmth" and part of this involves generating a nostalgia for the imperfections of the vinyl sound).

[Bryan Alexander]

Indeed.
I remember a Dead Kennedys tape sold around '85, with one side blank. The label there read something like "Home taping is killing the recording industry! use this side to carry on!"

[Randy Thornton]

I saw my first CD in 1984 at the Lincoln Center Tower Records in NYC, in the classical section.

The big bulky CD players were about $800 to $1,000 and were available only at high end audio stores. A CD cost about $15, at a time when vinyl records and tape cassettes cost about 7-8 bucks.

Fastforward almost 25 years: CD players now cost about 20 bucks in tiny little boxes at K-Mart.

And CDs STILL COST about $15.