The CD Turns 25 Years Old August 18, 2007

Philips has rolled out the nostalgia carpet with news that the humble CD is 25 years old. Apart from having to re-buy much of my collection to replace vinyl and tapes, I love CDs even if they were in no way as indestructible as once claimed by manufacturers. "Scratch resistant", anyone? Here are some of the highlights:

- Worlds first CD manufactured at Philips factory near Hanover, Germany, on August 17, 1982
- Co-developed with Sony, over 200 billion CDs sold in last 25 years
- The first CD to be manufactured at the plant was The Visitors by ABBA.
- Most of the first 150 CDs on the market by November 1982 [in Japan nothing new there then] were classical
- CDs arrived in Europe in March 1983
- The original target storage capacity for a CD was one hour of audio content, and a disc diameter of 115mm was sufficient for this, however Sony and Philips extended the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate a complete performance of Beethovens 9th Symphony.
- By the time CDs were introduced on the market in November 1982, a catalogue of around 150 titles mainly classical music had been produced.
- In 1985, Dire Straits, adopted the CD and the album Brothers in Arms, became the biggest selling CD then and the third biggest seller of the 1980s.