Exactly 25 years ago the world's first compact disc was produced at a Philips factory in Germany, sparking a global music revolution.
More than 200 billion CDs have been sold worldwide since then and it remains the dominant format despite the growth in digital downloads.
The CD was jointly developed by Philips and Sony and the disc has also become a key storage method for computer users.
The first CD produced was The Visitors by Abba.
Piet Kramer, who was a member of the optical group at Philips during the disc's development, said: "When Philips teamed up with Sony to develop the CD, our first target was to win over the world for the CD.
Well I have to say, it has to be one of, if not "the", greatest inventions of the 20th century.
And dont forget, this technology and its media is resposinble for distributing masses of things to people all over the planet including these popular formats:
And its no co-incendence that future formats such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD are the same in both format and size, and manufacturers insist that players should be backward compatible with DC's and DVD's.
Autowirral.co.uk - The Northwest's Biggest forum of Motoring Enthusiasts. Cruisewirral.com - The Northwest's Biggest forum of Modified Car Enthusiasts.
They were the best for VHS though... well bar JVC of course, but they were better and far more reliable then the likes of Sony and Panasonic, especially in the early days when failiures where commonplace.
Autowirral.co.uk - The Northwest's Biggest forum of Motoring Enthusiasts. Cruisewirral.com - The Northwest's Biggest forum of Modified Car Enthusiasts.