The Compact Disc Turns 25

By Greg McNevin

August 20, 2007: Last week the humble CD celebrated its 25th birthday, and while new storage mediums and digital downloads are highlighting that the CD’s retirement is approaching, a quarter-century plus run certainly isn’t anything to scoff at.

Developed by Philips and Sony in 1979, the Compact Disk has proven itself to be one of the most versatile, popular and enduring data storage mediums ever developed. After years in development, the first disc rolled off the line in Germany in 1982

The disc was originally designed to be 11.5cm in diameter and hold an hours worth of music, however, this was revised to 12cm and 74 minutes so it could hold Beethoven's 9th Symphony (a favourite of Sony co-founder Akio Morita) in its entirety, or so the legend goes.

In 1980 Sony nailed down the industry-wide music CD specifications in its “Red Book”, this was followed a few years later with its “Yellow Book” specification for computer data CD’s and the rest, as they say, is history.

Throughout the 90’s and into the 2000’s, and well before the convenience of broadband, the CD proved itself to be an exceptional data storage and software distribution medium. Today the majority of over-the-counter software remains CD-based.