History 2002: CD Turns 20

The first audio digital compact disc was produced on August 17, 1982 in Polygram’s factory in Hanover, Germany.

The disc was the fruit of a standard developed jointly by Philips and Sony.

The popular media was first introduced in October of that year, in Japan, with an initial catalog of only 50 titles, including Billy Joel’s 52nd Street.

The first Sony drive was the CDP-1010. A European launch followed in March 1983, with the US premiere a year later. The audio CD was eventually spunoff as a CD-ROM in 1985, CD-R in 1988 and CD-RW in 1991.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 178 on November 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.