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25th Compact Disc Anniversary
On 17th August 1982 the
first Compact Disc was produced in Hanover (Germany) by Philips company. First
records sold on CDs were The Visitors by Abba and the recording of Herbert von
Karajan conducting the Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss. This year we
celebrate 25th anniversary of Compact
Disc, a device which sparked a global revolution on the music market.
In most simple words the CD was jointly developed by Philips and
Sony. In fact this story is much more complex and a contemporary CDs had many
predecessors, including the American inventor James T. Russell. He was the
first to develop a revolutionary idea to use light for sound recording and
playing. He invented the first digital-to-optical recording and playback system
and even obtained patent for it. His invention, the CD-ROM, found a few
interested investors and licensees from audio companies, including Sony.
Copyright Philips
In 1979 Philips and Sony began their cooperation aimed at developing
a new optical standard for music recordings. Both companies set up the
standards for future CDs and agreed to share experiences from their
achievements. As Piet Kramer, who was a member of the optical group at Philips,
says: "We did this by collaborating openly to agree on a new standard. For
Philips, this open innovation was a new approach and it paid off." For example
Philips planed to produce 11.5cm diameter CD but changed plans when Sony
insisted that a disc must hold all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The longest recording of that
Symphony last 74 minutes and that is exactly the audio space on 12 cm CD.
The first CDs went on sale in November 1982. Classical music lovers
were seen as the primary target because the first CD-players were very
expensive, costing around 1000 £ at today’s rate. Since that time over
200 billion CDs have been sold. Compact Disc became the most popular carrier
for music recording and computer digital data and was a predecessor of
today’s DVDs. Philips Company was granted a series of patents for its
complex invention.
25th CD Anniversary on
Philips website
How
the CD was developed
Story of James T. Russell, an early inventor of the technology
Compact Disk on Wikipedia
One of many Philips patents
Early James T. Russel Patent
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