The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group The Slow Spiral of CD-ROMs Gordon Woolf

We missed an anniversary last year — the introduction of the CD to computers 20 years ago. However, it was hardly a major event that many computer users would have noticed at the time.

There were front page magazine articles such as "New mass storage medium on the horizon" in one now defunct US magazine in 1986, complete with the inevitable picture of flying CDs. (Well how else do you represent a flat disc with a hole in the middle; fortunately with the correct lighting it can be made to throw off some rainbow coloured reflections.)

Even that magazine writer was not entirely convinced this was a major device for the future and so, as well as explaining that these were 43/4-inch shimmering, iridescent discs which could be read in a player about the same size as a small printer, he did hedge his bets by seeing a possibly greater future in the CD-I, a slightly bigger disc that could carry pictures and audio as well as data. Industry leaders had described this second device as a "bombshell" announcement but it also made a rather dull thud.

The CD-ROM specifications, like the audio CD itself a few years earlier, and the recordable version which was to follow, were jointly published by the Dutch company Phillips and the Japanese group Sony.

There was quite a need to set those standards — the various firms, such as Philips and Sony had different ideas on how it should work, including what size the disc should be, and there was a substantial negotiation before it was decided that the data on a CD should start in the centre and spiral towards the outer edge. Even so it took another year for Mitsubishi to accept such ideas.

Apparently learning from its experience with its Compact Cassette for music in the 1960s, Philips led the way to establishing a single standard for audio CDs and that in turn led to the eventual almost universal use of the CD with computers, winning over many others including the formidable ZIP drive.

I was present at the London press conference which launched the compact "musicassette" and I was among those who wondered why a company would create a new product and then allow anyone a licence to make them without any payment of royalties. I did not take up the offer to buy the demo player and tapes I'd been lent. Of course that player was a little larger than the soon-to-be-released Sony Walkman.

But, as I said, uptake on CD-ROMs was not fast, and it seems manufacturers were disinclined to gamble on a fast sale giving big profits from a small margin. In the late 1980s there was also a residual idea that audio CD players were for use in cars. There is little basic difference between an audio CD player and a CD-ROM drive; I'm told it can be as little as one chip, and the output ports. But even in 1990 a bargain ad in an Australian magazine listed an internal CD-ROM drive at $1030, plus $270 for the interface card.

The consumer may have been waiting for the writable CD. Allen Adkins in Amsterdam had shown a means of doing this from a desktop computer in 1987, though it took around 24 hours to write the CD. Four years later it took somewhat less time, a version of the writer with its software "Quick Topix" was on the market and CD-Rs were soon selling at a somewhat slow rate of 200,000 a year. Just a few years ago writing a CD on the average desktop computer took at least an hour, during which you dare not even touch the keyboard.

Originally called the CD-WO (Compact Disc — Write Once), it became more commonly called the CD-R (Compact Disc — Recordable), and that's the name that stuck. Its 20th anniversary should probably be marked next year.

Now progress is much faster, DVDs were released in 1997 and that same year came a standard for recordable DVDs though perhaps we still need a firm that takes the lead in negotiating for a single standard while putting immediate profit prospects as a second consideration.

Useful CD Utilities

Nero CD-DVD Speed is a free test utility from Nero at http://www.cdspeed2000.com/download.html  with an independent user guide at http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=192563
.
CD/DVD forums to answer questions and with lots of online information: http://club.cdfreaks.com/ .

For utilities which can be run direct from a CD without having to install on your computer, see the Dirk Loss list at
http://www.dirk-loss.de/win-tools.htm.

To find a driver for a CD/DVD drive, see Driver Guide at http://www.driverguide.com/  (and the first software in this list will help identify just what you have).

About the Author
Gordon Woolf is a longtime Melb PC member and author who laments his poor record on early recognition of winners. As well as missing the significance of the compact cassette, he admits to not taking an offer from the son of furniture and record store owner in Liverpool for a free ticket to see a new band he'd just booked into the Cavern, and asking the man on an airport bus with a long thin case who'd said his name was Eddie Charlton, "what do you do for a living?"

Reprinted from the May 2007 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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