March 8 - The Future Was Here! - Introduction of CDs!

Posted on March 8, 2020

The longing to record sound and then, later, play it back, started back in the late 1800s with scratching an analogue of sound waves onto a wax-coated disc or cylinder (along with other, similar technologies), and moved through a variety of materials including polyvinyl plastic records and magnetic tape.




On this date in 1979, representatives of the Philips company gave the first public demonstration of the compact disc. The digital age of sound recording had arrived - and looking at the rainbow-silver plastic discs, it seemed as if the future had indeed arrived. 

NOTHING could be more modern, more futuristic, more Jetsons-esque that THIS...

Right?



Of course, a mere decade later, CDs were almost obsolete as people used iPods and other portable media players to play digital audio files - no physical disc and relatively bulky disc player needed! 

And sure enough iPods became really teeny...


And now most of our cars and phones and tablets as well as teeny-tiny digital audio file players have access to all the music ever, and we talk more about music-streaming services like Spotify than about CDs...


Old folks like me have many of the same songs on vinyl records, audio tapes, and CDs - but when I want to hear those songs, I just play them off a streaming service! That means that, not only do I have a whole lot of bulk of outdated music storage that I never, ever use, but also that I have paid for the same song three or four times. Sheesh!




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