Happy birthday! Today exactly 40 years ago, on August 17 1979, the very first compact disc saw the light of day. The technique was an invention by Philips and Sony, who partnered 5 years later again to develop the compact disc interactive, an evolution of the development of the compact disc itself. Without the compact disc, there would be no compact disc interactive at all! It took another three years (until 1982) before the first commercial compact disc was produced and when cosumers were able to buy a CD player. But on this day, internally at Philips the first compact disc prototype was pressed. It was Polygram who was responsible for the first manufacturing process; a company owned by Philips and also responsible as publisher of many music and video CD's on CD-i between 1993-1996. Together they wrote history!
The compact disc was in a way the very start of what eventually became the compact disc interactive and its many alternatives: PC CD-ROM, Amiga CD. Sega CD, 3DO, Sony Playstation.... The compact disc plays a very important role in the development of home consoles, including CD-i by Philips itself. Philips earned money on it anyway by licensing its CD patents! And today it's exactly 40 years old.
