Throwback Technology Thursdays: the Compact Disc!

Next in our Throwback Technology series:  the Compact Disc!  

Well, I said last week that we would cover CD-ROMs soon, and here they are!  Now, there is actually a lot of ground to cover, in that CDs (compact discs) were originally developed for audio storage in the early 1980s.  The disc could hold 74 minutes of sound, which made it attractive as an improvement over the record and the cassette tape, which were limited to 45 minutes per side.  You wouldn't have to flip the CD over to keep listening.  

By the late 1980s, the primacy of cassettes was yielding to CDs, and at the same time CDs started to be used for computer storage.  With a CD-ROM drive (as shown above), you could write data on to the disc, which could accommodate 650 megabytes (MB).  In time this was tweaked up to 700 MB.  The CD-ROM could be used as a portable storage mechanism, with files saved on the disc then moved between computers as needed.  It could also be used to just write data once onto the disc for storage. CDs became a primary way to purchase and deliver software.   

In time, both the audio and computer storage versions of the CD ran into new means for storage and music delivery.  With speedier data transfer speeds through the Internet, it became more and more feasible to download music files from the Web.  Eventually online storage of files was much faster and could replace external storage media.  In between, the appearance of USB flash drives made the size and relative slowness of the CD-ROM passe.  

These discs served their purpose well, and have remained as a storage mechanism.  The disc shown in the image above includes a recording of the dedication ceremony when the Middletown campus opened in 1966.  The data is actually etched into the disc, so it is not as easy to lose the memory on there (as with the magnetic storage methods of a computer hard drive or the USB flash drive).  But, it's only useful to have things stored on a CD-ROM if you have the right drive to read the disc.  As those have disappeared from laptops and desktops, it's harder to find a way to get to that data (or to music CDs, as CD players are fewer and farther between).

If you'd like to see some CDs and CD-ROMs (and the drive), stop by the library.   More throwback technology is coming at you next week!