Happy Birthday to the Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is now 30 years old! I'll wait you you swallow and say, "Gee I couldn't be that old!"

Not only is the CD 30 years old, it's almost obsolete!

Here's a bit of background:

While it wasn't the first CD  per se, the very first commercial compact disc was:

Billy Joel's 52nd Street was the first real commercial release for the technology.  The CD was off and running. 52nd Street produced the hits: "Moving out", "Just the Way You Are" and "She's Always a Woman."

Of course, it would have just been an undersized Frizbee had not the first CD player been released the same day.

The first CD player went for about $650  (that would be about $1,500 2012 dollars) and very few people were willing shell out that much considering the limited number of CD's on the market.  That fact, compared with the high cost of CD's at the time, about $15, the new gadget was slow to catch on.

But, they did catch on and Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" became the first CD to sell a million copies.

The initial marketing touted that these now CD's, unlike records, wouldn't get scratched. Yeah, how many scratching CD's do you have that skip and get hung up worse than vinyl ever did? Then there is the on-going debate about sound quality.

Many people like the "pristine" sound, but true sonic fans hate the limited frequency response from the highly compressed files.

At any rate, as more and more digital technology becomes available, almost daily. The CD's days are numbered. No doubt it won't be very long at all until CD's become the Punch-line to jokes like the 8-Track is today.