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The CD Turns 25 Today

netbuzz writes "Seems like only yesterday to those of us of a certain age, but the CD turns 25 today. Philips, maker of the first CD on Aug. 17, 1982, estimates that more than 200 billion have been sold since. The younger set might have trouble appreciating the difference in auditory quality that the compact disc represented over vinyl or cassette tapes (some have probably never even seen a record). And all but true trivia buffs will have trouble coming up with the name of the artist on that first disc."

13 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Happy Birthday! by Kranfer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Happy Birthday Compact Disc! Now wheres my isolinear optical chip I was promised by Star Trek?!?!?!

    --
    -- Josh
    "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
    1. Re:Happy Birthday! by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm still waiting for my dilithium crystal powered car.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  2. What a sad begining... by bbernard · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't believe the artist that was first recorded on CD. What, were the Bee Gees unavailable? And now I've got one of their damn songs going through my head. Damn you first CD trivia!

    --
    ----- Connection reset by beer
    1. Re:What a sad begining... by abbamouse · · Score: 2, Funny

      You go to hell! You go to hell and die! How dare thee besmirch the names of Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn, and Anni-Frid!

      So sayeth the ABBA mouse. So shall it be done.

      --
      Make cheese not war 8:)
  3. Re:cue the... by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

    Cue the vinyl fanatics who will whine about how "warm" their vinyls sound

    Don't worry. I think I've managed to kill tham all.

  4. Re:sad by Rob+T+Firefly · · Score: 2, Funny

    Haha!! I remember in the 1980s older relatives giving me "Pac Man tapes" for my Atari. (No matter what game it was, they still called it a "Pac Man tape," as in "Here's the Pac Man tape of 'Pitfall' you wanted!" Later I would collect "Nintendo tapes" for my NES.

    Nowadays my mom still calls DVDs "CDs." Baby steps..

  5. Re:The First Discs Were Not ABBA by Bazman · · Score: 3, Funny

    ABBA (whats the Unicode for a backwards 'B'?) were just first in alphabetical order, because popular beat combo Aaron's Aardvarks hadn't formed yet. And still haven't.

  6. 200 Billion? by shogarth · · Score: 2, Funny

    Anyone care to guess how many of these wre AOL coasters?

  7. Re:The First Discs Were Not ABBA by halcyon1234 · · Score: 5, Funny

    1st cd microwaved: AOL

  8. Re:The First Discs Were Not ABBA by TobyRush · · Score: 2, Funny

    My first disc was Squeeze's Babylon and On, and the thing that first amazed me was not the sound quality but how soon you heard the music after pressing "play"... no tape leader to wait through.

    Also, the first time I opened that Squeeze jewel case, the CD was rotated exactly correctly (so the text on the CD was oriented the right way) and thus, ever since, my slightly OCD self has always put CDs back in their jewel cases right side up. My wife gives me heck for this, and often threatens to go downstairs and start randomly rotating CDs when she wants to get under my skin.

    --
    Sam! If you will let me be,
    I will try them.
    You will see.
  9. All you players and posers never owned an 8 track! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm 40 and I owned a record player, an 8-track, and a tape player. I didn't even buy a CD player until around 1990. SO BFD to all the wannabees out there who think they're cool just because they've seen a record. I've walked through the 8-track jungle, baby.

  10. Re:The 74-minute story by cellocgw · · Score: 2, Funny

    Speaking of varying the length of a piece, is that John Cage organ piece still going on in?
    IIRC the composer wrote "as slow as possible," so some gang of fools come in and move a couple sandbags every few days (onto different organ keys), and the piece will finish on the 100th anniversary of Cage's birth or some such.
    like at this story

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  11. Re:CD vs. vinyl audio quality by Tim+Browse · · Score: 2, Funny

    Vinyl stores more information than CDs do. Quite a bit more.

    Oh really?

    Of course. This is trivially provable - vinyl has to store all the extra information about where the scratchs, pops, crackles and worn-out grooves are. You don't get that information on CDs!