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- 1980 - CD-Audio - Standards created by Philips and Sony for digital audio format on
optical disks.
- 1983 - CD Players -Sony introduces first audio CD player.
- 1985 - CD-ROM - Sony and Philips announce standard for CD-ROM.
- 1987 -CD-ROM Drive - first ones released. Data throughput at 150Kbps with 640MB.
- 1993 - Myst sold 2 million copies - heralding the arrival of
the commercial PC based CD.
- 1994 - 4 x CD-ROM Drive - Data through put rates increase to 600Kbps.
- 1995 - Virgin Entertainment lost $14 million on PC based CDs.
- 1995 - Wing Commander IV cost $14 million to produce (1/2 million need to be sold to
break even). Though $1.5 million average cost.
- 1995 - 6x CD-ROM Drive - Data throughput to 900 Kbps
- 1996 - Internet becomes major competitor to CD's offering more interactivity (for games)
and better quality, currency and range of content (from school children to rocket
scientists).
- The demise of the CD ?
- Many CD's of dubious value and at $100+ are gaining consumer resistance, and the average
consumer buys one per year.
- Require "attractive packaging" to stand out on display shelves - implying
distribution costs and display space.
- Many have no advantage over books (Exceptions are products requiring annual updates ,
eg. Encarta)
 (Hoar, P.,
1996 Dec)
- 1996- 10x and 12x CD-ROM Drives - Throughput of up to 1800Kbps
- 1996 - CD-R - Prices of compact disk recordable drives drop to make them viable backup
options.
- 1997 - CD-RW - Compact disk rewritable drives and media allow overwriting of files on
CD.
- 1997 - DVD-ROM - First DVD disks and drives appear for purchase. Capacity is 4.7GB.
- 1998 - High capacity DVD-ROM - DVD Disk capacities increase. Drives become more common
in medium to high end machines.
- Acknowledgement: 1997 MattB for some of the research.
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