Philips and Sony

CD-ROM

CD-ROM is a read-only optical data format co-developed by Philips and Sony, formalised in the 1983 Yellow Book. It reuses the CD-DA’s physical design and laser-read mechanism but repurposes pits and lands for arbitrary digital data—delivering 553 MB via destructive interference physics. It launched publicly in 1985 with Philips’ CM 100 drive. It solved mass-distribution problems for static software and reference material but failed as an archival or interactive medium—prompting Sony to launch write-once and magneto-optical variants by 1986 and 1988.