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Japanese
and Dutch scientists invented the Compact Disc (CD)
in 1981. It was able to record sound as microscopic
changes in the surface of a plastic disc, with the changes
"read" by a laser in a CD player and changed
back into sound electronically.
Launched
in 1982 by Philips and Sony, the lightweight plastic
discs were just 4¾ inches (12cm) in diameter,
compared to 12 inches (30 cm) for LP records.
The shiny, un-scratchable pygmy-45
sized digitally encoded discs appealed to the older,
richer, more discerning record buyer disenchanted with
floppy, scratchable, 12 inch vinyl. CD customers were
interested in purity of sounds, and more importantly,
reluctant to have to get up in the middle of a dinner
party to turn an album over!
In 1985, the CD-ROM was developed
by Philips/Hitachi and this new media began to be used
for storing data generated on a computer. It quickly
became the default standard for computer storage media.
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