The two videotape formats staged a battle to the death for about five years, because nobody who had a Beta VCR could play a VHS tape, and nobody who had a VHS VCR could play a Beta tape and everybody thought that was a dumb idea. Beta eventually lost when Sony gave up the fight. The electronics industry's command centers in Tokyo and elsewhere were supposed to have learned a lesson from this. They were real proud of the way they all got together behind the laser disc that Sony and Philips invented a decade ago. All that togetherness helped make the compact disc what it is today the preferred way of listening to recorded sound.
CDs are sturdy and they sound good, and they last just about forever.
And they're even getting cheaper. What's more, the compact disc is the most promising invention in audio since Tom Edison put wiggles on cylinders. It's got more potential than we can figure what to do with. It can hold sound, photographs, video, computer programs, telephone numbers imagine a single CD with the phone numbers of everyone in North America and things we haven't dreamed of yet. And best of all, the CD can be used for recording.