Hi, Ciril Kosorok wrote: > The CD turns 25 Thanks for the tip, you proud ex-Philips man ! I was thinking: I am sitting in building WY now, and this may well be the exact place where the CD was conceived ?! Makes me kinda proud. Another anecdote is that the size of the hole in the disk was taken from the Dutch 10 cents coin ("dubbeltje"), which was 14 mm diameter. I think that the first ("CD-100") players were shown during the 1982 Firato show, which was held in the summer of every even year. But it wasn't until March 1983 that CDs and players became availabe for sale in Europe. We had such great expectations of the resistance to dirt and scratches... Now we know better. Whenever the DVD player stalls, my 3 yr old son comes running with a lens tissue to clean the disk, usually from his own dirty fingerprints. (He even offered one when the satellite signal was lost, haha.) Isn't it weird that in those days nobody has ever considered dual sided and/or dual layer disks, different formats, different colors of lasers ? This may have been the last time that a true world standard was set, and one that is still very much alive after 25 years ! Of course the bad news is that all the CD patents have expired. :-( Best, -- Jeroen +------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | From: Jeroen H. Stessen | Phone: ++31.40.27.40246 | | Deptmt.: Philips Applied Technologies | Mobex: ++31.40.27.99650 | | Digital Systems & Technologies | Mobile: ++31.6.4468.0021 | | Address: High Tech Campus 5 - room 5.025 | Skype: Jeroen.Stessen | | 5656 AE Eindhoven - Nederland | VoIP: Jeroen.Stessen.at.Philips | | Website: http://www.apptech.philips.com/ | E-mail: Jeroen.Stessen@xxxxxxxxxxx | +------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+