Talkie Zoo: CD radio history

Just a bit of history here. Did you know that today, January 28, is the anniversary of the CD being played on the radio? It's true. On this date in 1983 the first CD was played in New Jersey on a radio station - WDHA, 105.5. I thought that was an interesting bit of entertainment history since before that it had been all vinyl or tapes played.

The CD brought about a revolution in music quality and choice. Unlike cassettes, you could easily choose which track to play. Cassettes had to be queued up to the right point before you pushed the play button on the player. Of course, there were singles on cassettes, but the albums were harder to queue. Plus, you had to flip them over to hear the other side. Not sure that was a huge improvement over multi-tracks or vinyl records.

Ok. I still remember 8-tracks and even 4-tracks. Yeah, I'm that old. But, the advantage of those is that you didn't have to flip them over and they would continuously play until you hit "stop" or took them out of the player. I actually liked them better than cassettes because of those reasons, though they were much larger and bulkier when it came to storing them. Cassette tapes were smaller and easier to store and carry. The machines that played them were also smaller. But if a magnet got near them or the multi-track tapes, watch out. You'd lose everything on the tape. A magnet wiped them clean!

We are really in the digital age, you know. I have a new HD television, am shopping for digital cameras (since mine was STOLEN while I was at work!), and am loving my Sony home theater system, which is HD.

So, now we have CDs. They really are an improvement. They're tough, easy to store, and give you an exceptionally clear sound. Yeah, we've come a long way baby!