The CD Turns 25

The compact disc, which Wired calls an "obsolete form of optical media," has been spinning for 25 years today, according to a press release from Philips. The first disk, a recording of ABBA’s “The Visitors,” was produced in Hanover, Germany in 1982. A stunning 200 billion CDs have been produced since, and the technology and form have been adapted for next-gen media like DVD and Blu-Ray.

The disks, co-designed with Sony, originally contained mostly classical music—the size of the disk was determined by the length of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Developers admit they had no idea that the technology would later be used to store software, movies, and every other kind of data. (More compact discs stories.)