18 Apr 08 Compact Discs

The technology was first demonstrated in a rudimentary form by Italian Antonio Rubbiani back in 1957.

The compact disc was named to remind people of the Compact Cassette which had been introduced in the mid 1960′s by Philips.

The reason that the standard CD held 74 mins of music, is due to Sony, who jointly pioneered the CD project with Philips, and insisted that Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, which was the longest recording in the Polygram catalog, fit on a disc. Philips had originally proposed a slightly smaller CD to accommodate an hours worth of music.

The first commercial CD pressed was in 1984, The Visitors by Abba. A year later, Dire Straits album, Brothers In Arms, sold a million, and is still the most successful CD to date.

Tags: abba, album brothers in arms, beethoven, brothers in arms, cd project, commercial cd, compact cassette, compact disc, dire straits, Music, philips, polygram, sony