history of the compact disc:

The Compact Disc (CD) was invented by Sony and Philips with the involvement of Hitachi for the audio-digital part in 1979. The technical characteristics of this new format were published in 1980 in a document called the “orange book”. The technical developments were divided between the two companies as follows: :

• Philips concentrated on the design of the CD and the optical reading system (lens). Actually, the Dutch had the benefit of some experience in this area due to the LaserDisc format which they had developed and marketed since 1972.
• The Sony Corporation concerned itself with defining the audio digitisation system and the error correction method.

The CD format was marketed from the autumn of 1982. The first disc left the factory in Hanover in Germany on 17 August 1982. The first audio players were sold in Japan bundled with Billy Joel’s CD, “52nd Street” but it was the release of the Dire Straits “Brothers in Arms” CD which marked the format’s real take-off. Actually, the album sold more than a million copies.

• some say that the conductor, Herbert von Karajan, insisted that the slowest version of Beethoven’s 9th symphony could be contained on a single disc.
• Others claim that it was the wife of the president of the Sony Corporation who was behind this choice, for the same reasons as the Austrian conductor.