Did you know that on August 17 in 1979 the first compact discs were developed as a spin off to Laser Discs? For those of you that have never seen a Laser Disc, let's just say thank goodness, otherwise listening to a high quality version of your favorite music outside of your home would have involved a DJ crate and a stack of record sized shiny discs.
News: The Compact Disc Turns 25
We can't believe it has been that long, or maybe it's more that time has gone by that fast, but it seems that the 25th birthday of the CD could also be leading up to the retirement party. With so many ways to get music digitally, it is inevitable. We can't even remember the last time we bought a physical CD. Can you?
-via Wired
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it seems strange that the CD has been around for 25 years... I'm 23 and don't remember seeing them in music stores until i was a pre-teen... i owned nothing but tapes until middle school or so...
view closertotheocean's profile
Huh. If the first CD was made in 1979, wouldn't that make it 29 years old?
closertotheocean, affordable consumer CD players weren't released to markets until around the early/mid-90s, hence why no one really bought CDs. And the electronic market was also very different then, not as sought after as it is today, so it was years before a new technology actually became consumer friendly.
view sparkle's profile
I think the first demonstration CD's came out in '79. The format didn't become available to consumers in the US until 1983.
I remember seeing one of the first commercially-available CD players (a drawer-loading Sony) at Diamonds department store in downtown Phoenix sometime in '83. It was in black, which was unusual at the time - most stereo equipment was silver in those days. Within a couple of years everybody switched over to black, which has continued to dominate 'till this day.
I think they had just a handful of albums available to demonstrate it with - maybe Billy Joel's 52nd Street and The Stranger, both of which I was familiar with, plus a couple of classical recordings.
Coming from a world where *every* recording you played back was plagued by hiss, rumble, clicks and pops and gobs of harmonic distortion, the CD was a total revelation. It was like cleaning off a windshield caked with mud to get your first clear view of the road.
I got my first player in late '86 or early '87. They were still pretty expensive - around $300, as I recall. I'm trying to recall the first discs I bought. Prince's Parade was one of them - it still sounds incredible - and Kate Bush's greatest hits package The Whole Story was another. Good times!
view sunspot42's profile