A complex invention doesn't usually appear out of thin air with no precedents, and the compact disc is no exception. As a medium for reproducing music, the CD is a merger and adaptation of many different technologies, including the laser (first demonstrated 1960), digital recording (first demonstrated 1967), optical disc technology (first commercially used in the 1970s for LaserVision movies), and of course the computer. The digital sampling rate of 44.1 kHz is based on equations first published in 1928, the pulse code modulation (PCM) method of audio encoding used by the CD dates to 1948, and the error correction codes used date to 1960. With all these disparate parts waiting for someone to develop a workable system in the 1970s, several competing groups worked in secret.

It was Philips Industries, a Dutch-based electronics giant (known in the music world as owner of the PolyGram labels), that made the first announcement, on May 17, 1978. Working with Japan's Sony Corporation, Philips announced that they would have a marketable compact disc and appropriate hardware ready "in the early 1980s." That promise was kept on October 1, 1982, when the compact disc was introduced in Japan by CBS/Sony, with 112 different CD titles and a CD player (Sony's CDP-101). The last few months of 1982 were hectic, with Sony selling over 20,000 CD players and Hitachi also posting sales in the 6,000 per month range for their player. Prices for these initial players ran from about $700 to about $1000. The discs themselves, priced at about $15-20, could not be pressed fast enough to meet demand. Sony's research on who was buying the discs in Japan indicated it was young (20s, early 30s) men with a particular interest in sound quality. Perhaps it was this research that led others to believe, as the rest of the world looked on in curiosity to what was happening in Japan, that CDs would fill a niche for high quality sound enthusiasts and little else. By the end of 1982, CBS/Sony and Epic/Sony had issued 122 CD titles. Of these, 34 were classical, followed in number by jazz, rock, and pop, including 12 karaoke ("empty orchestra") titles to be used in singalongs (gadzooks, what hath CD wrought?). Among the titles were Billy Joel's Nylon Curtain and 52nd Street, Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity, and Michael Jackson's Off The Wall.

The stories about compact discs published in Billboard during early 1983 are fascinating. The lead story on January 29 has PolyGram mulling over how to package the CD in the US when it's released later in 1983, leaning toward the (in retrospect, ill-fated) "long box," the 6"x12" cardboard box which they convinced the industry to adopt at the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) meeting the next week. (Many at the meeting were considering a 12"x12" box!) In February, Sony announced a "firm" suggested retail price of $1000 for their CD player and $16.98 for discs when they would be introduced later that year in the US. February 23, 1983 marked the debut of the compact disc in Europe, with PolyGram's Hans Gout noting that, "The sooner the Compact Disc replaces the conventional black vinyl LP, the better." By early March, Sony and CBS Records in the US were supplying free compact disc players and discs to selected radio stations here, mostly with Classical and Album-Oriented Rock formats. The March 12 issue of Billboard also notes that Capitol Record Shop, a Hartford, Connecticut, record store, had begun importing CDs from Japan and Europe, with 24 titles at a price tag of $24.95 each. At the time the owner was interviewed, he had only sold a total of one disc.

Several months of delays and anticipation dragged by, until in late June, 1983, CBS finally shipped the first CD "prepacks" to a select 35 accounts. Each prepack had a total of 12 titles, with no more than a total of 1000 prepacks altogether in the first shipment. Among the individual titles were Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, Billy Joel's The Stranger, Michael Jackson's Thriller, and Toto's Toto IV. Other titles were jazz and classical. The CD era had begun in the United States.

Within about a month, CBS had issued several other pop/rock titles, including Boston's Don't Look Back, Earth Wind & Fire's Raise!, ELO's Discovery, Journey's Escape, Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees, Barbra Streisand's Guilty, and Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run. These had the CBS logo (and mastering numbers in the DIDP 50000 series). Later, these were reissued with Columbia logos, but these remain as examples of the earliest American CD releases.

After the introduction of the CD here, most of the stories in the trade press center around the acute shortage of pressing plants. At that time, there were two major plants, PolyGram's Hanover, West Germany plant, and Sony's plant in Japan. (Almost all the CDs sold under US labels for the first few years were either made in Japan or West Germany.) Sales figures for the US in 1983 totalled about 30,000 players and 800,000 discs. Still, no one really knew if the CD would succeed.

In September, 1984, the first large US plant, a Sony subsidiary, Digital Audio Disc Corporation (DADC) opened in Terre Haute, Indiana. From there, other plants came online to help stop the critical shortage.

Actually, it wasn't until Christmastime in 1985 that CD sales finally turned the corner for good, leaving many stores virtually sold out of stock, and pushing the sales totals for the year to 22 million discs.

In early 1987, the No Noise system was introduced, a computer-based system that could subtract out background hiss, edit pops, and in general clean up digital masters. This proved to be a major step forward in the sound quality we hear today from remastered oldies. By the mid-1990s, computer-assisted cleanup systems were doing wonders with even the most noisy source material.

By the end of 1987, over 200 labels were issuing CDs at the collective rate of over 100 million discs for the market of 9 million CD players. By 1990, the vinyl market had all but thrown in the towel, becoming in itself a "specialty niche." Although given up for dead around 1992 or 1993, vinyl records have proved some staying power, as small quantities are still being issued today.

In late February, 1992, the RIAA announced that as of April, 1993, the industry would no longer make the long boxes. I guess it was an indication of just how far the CD had come, that the volume of discarded cardboard was filling up landfills at an alarming enough rate to cause environmentalists to target the long box as wasteful. The CD had definitely arrived!