https://www.fastcompany.com/91128052/history-of-cd-roms-encarta-myst
"Thirty years ago, a breakthrough technology was poised to transform how people
stayed informed, entertained themselves, and maybe even shopped. I’m not
talking about the World Wide Web. True, it was already getting good buzz among
early adopter types. But even three years after going online, Tim Berners-Lee’s
creation was “still relatively slow and crude” and “limited to perhaps two
million Internet users who have the proper software to gain access to it,”
wrote
The New York Times’ Peter H. Lewis in November 1994.
At the time, it was the CD-ROM that had captured the imagination of consumers
and the entire publishing industry. The high-capacity optical discs enabled
mass distribution of multimedia for the first time, giving software developers
the ability to create new kinds of experiences. Some of the largest companies
in America saw them as media’s next frontier, as did throngs of startups. In
terms of pure mindshare, 1994 might have been the year of Peak CD, with 17.5
million CD-ROM drives and $590 million in discs sold, according to research
firms Dataquest and Link Resources.
You already know that the frenzy didn’t last. As the web got faster, slicker,
and more readily accessible, CD-ROMs came to look pretty mundane, and
eventually faded from memory.
Myst, once the best-selling PC game of all
time, might be the only 1990s disc that retains a prominent spot in our shared
cultural consciousness. (Full disclosure: I do have a friend who can be relied
upon to fondly bring up Microsoft’s
Cinemania movie guide about once a year
for no apparent reason.)
Revisiting the discs that defined the mid-1990s—all of which are incompatible
with modern operating systems—isn’t easy. To get some of them up and running
again, I downloaded virtual CD-ROM files from the Internet Archive and used
them with Windows 3.1 on my iPad Pro, courtesy of a piece of software Apple
removed from the App Store in 2021. Spending time with titles such as
Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia and
It’s a Wonderful Life Multi-Media
Edition, three decades after they last commanded my attention, was a Proustian
rush.
You may not want to go to similar extremes. But would you indulge me as I
wallow in enough CD-ROM nostalgia to get it out of my system?"
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
