I'd be most surprised if that was a consideration. After all, Philips already had the laser disc which was LP sized. They could have made the CD the same size as a 7" record with much greater playing time. But there was no digital mastering system at that time which could do longer.
In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus
Nah!, they couldn't have called it Compact Disc then so the CD couldn't have been invented;!...
It would still be compact compared to the LP it was meant to replace. ;-)
I doubt that the CD-ROM was envisioned when the CD was invented.
The Yellow Book standard for CD-ROM was published in 1988, at the same time as the Orange Book for CD-R, the Red Book for Audio CD was published in 1980.
Then, in 1993, came the White Book for Video CDs.
One reason for making it the size it is could have been that they may have looked forwards (As engineers often do) and foreseen that the CD drive could replace the 5 1/4" floppy drive in a standard computer case. People also found it a comfortable size to hold and view the "label", and that holds true for Blu Ray even now.
That assumes they realised it would be possible to home record a CD. I don't think this was thought possible when the system was devised. As I said, it was a replacement for LPs.
Do you not recall the fuss made over "multimedia" when it came to the PC?
(not your true multimedia as practiced on other platforms of the time - where the computer controlled a multitude of AV devices, but basically a PC with CD ROM and a sound card).
Apparently "you could now run applications like interactive encyclopaedia..." and software released on CD would be "impossible to pirate" since they had so huge a capacity they were much bigger than your HD, and you would need an impractical number of floppies to copy one.
The arrival of the CD writer kind of put the kibosh on those ideas (even if the first single speed drive released was $15,000).
I remeber getting my first Toshiba 3401B CD ROM drive[1] (with caddy load), and some PD software / "stuff" disks. It felt overwhelming having
650MB of stuff to sort through on a machine with a "large" 40MB hard drive! [1] Just wondering how sad it is that I remember the model number 25 years later? Still it was chosen carefully so that I could share it between platforms in an external SCSI drive enclosure (which I made from a standalone IBM 5.25" floppy drive unit)
And I still think of Compact as a television program...
I have long assumed that all disc sizes were derived from standard rack mounts. (With the odd exception such as the 3" drive used in some Amstrad machines.) So I'd go along with that but maybe as a pre-recorded CD-ROM rather than a rewritable device like a floppy?
'Tis a pity they didn't adopt a standard screw for fixing all drives...
Sad beggar - but I know what you mean!
And I bet a few on these groups are of the age that when teenagers they listened to tiny transistor radios tuned to the not always perfect MW transmission from a rust bucket ship in the North sea. And they enjoyed it, only later when they grew up bought Quad equipment etc and became Hi Fi experts. Hi Fi, sounds so 70's. Seemed every bloody contestant on a TV quiz show back then when asked what their hobby was answered HI FI. Usually meant they had bought their first stereo turntable in Woolies and a K Tel compilation to play on it.
G.Harman
In message , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes
ROFL! Very true.
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