Your birth year
2006
Compact Disc
19821980s
Compact Disc is 24 years older than you
It's from 1982, before you were born.
- Makers
- Sony & Philips
- Type
- Optical audio disc
- Debuted
- 1982
- Note
- 74 min by design
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About
As of 2026, it's 44 years old.
Sony and Philips co-invented the Compact Disc in 1982, replacing the warm hiss of vinyl with the cold, perfect silence of digital, and a laser instead of a needle. Legend has it the 74-minute runtime was chosen so it could hold all of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Marketers swore CDs were indestructible, a claim that survived right up until the first toddler used one as a frisbee. Still, the format ruled music for two decades and turned 'remastered' into a reason to buy the same album twice.
The shiny rainbow disc that made everyone re-purchase their entire record collection, then do it again for MP3s.
