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> More durable than a CD This irks me. Not that it's not true, but that tapes come with protective packaging intrinsic to the tape itself, whilst CDs are the r

> More durable than a CD This irks me. Not that it's not true, but that tapes come with protective packaging intrinsic to the tape itself, whilst CDs are the raw media that you actually touch with your fingers etc. CDs, way back when, were touted as the future not only because of their increased capacity for sound quality but also, ironically, their durability. Would CDs be actually more durable if they were also packaged with a small plastic exterior that was insertable into the player, like tapes? (Tape as raw medium isn't very durable if treated the same way as a CD. Tape needs that plastic exterior to even be viable).

c1sc0 3y ago
That you are describing is called MiniDisc.
hinoki 3y ago
CD caddies existed for a brief time. I think early drives were much more sensitive to dust and scratches. https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retro-scan-of-the-week-cd-rom-caddy https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retr...
lelanthran 3y ago
This actually existed; I remember, back in my youth, handling an optical disc for a Sun machine that was packaged the same way that floppies were - within a hard plastic enclosure with a little sliding mechanism that was activated by pushing the package into the slot (exactly the way 3.5" floppies worked).
- genewitch 3y ago
  Also DVD-RAM, when in the writer, had a shell. The single sided ones could be removed from the shell easily and put in a DVD drive (I do not recall if they worked in a regular DVD player) One of the biggest wastes of money, for me. I got way more use out of my minidisc stuff, which is another optical disc in a case. In fact I still have my net-MD recorder/player, and it works fine.
  - devilbunny 3y ago
    Oh, if only they hadn't jacked up MiniDisc with all the copyright-related stuff. A beautiful replacement for the convenience of cassettes (portability, battery life) with most of the benefits of CD (better sound, can't be eaten by the motors). Unfortunately expensive and never took off in the US.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  Yeah, my first CD-ROM drive was like this [1], the enclosure could be opened to place the CD inside. The drive came with one enclosure, I'm not aware that anyone (including me) ever bothered buying additional enclosures. This surely wasn't helped by the fact that Audio-CD's (with their mechanical trays) were already widespread and produced at large volume without such a cartridge-enclosure... [1]: https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Creative-CR-521-C-3.jpg https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Cr...
hakfoo 3y ago
CDs seem to be pretty resilient compared to tapes, from my experience buying used media. A small percentage of CDs will be unrippable, but a fair number of tapes are torn or self-destruct, and the players can have tape-destroying failure modes, aside from being mostly collections of belts that inevitably stretch, melt, or snap. One I was fiddling with managed to wrap several metres of tape around the capstan shaft so tightly it had to be cut off with a penknife.
- hurryer 3y ago
  CDs can crack pretty easily.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    What do you do to crack a CD? Play frisbee? I grew up with CDs and never knew of one cracking. With sufficient scratching it was possibly to get them the skip, but even friends who kept CDs unboxed in piles round the CD player didn't have this problem.
    - hurryer 3y ago
      Sit on them. Because it's inside a bag, or under a blanket. Parent was talking that CDs are less tolerant of abusive handling.
      - Symbiote 3y ago
        OK. There's a whole level of carelessness that never occurred to me as a teenager who grew up with CDs.
    - lodovic 3y ago
      No, but if you manage to scratch the aluminum foil layer on the backside, the CD instantly becomes useless. Or when you store cd's in large unboxed stacks, they can stick together, which can also damage the backside.
StableAlkyne 3y ago
>Tape needs that plastic exterior to even be viable Reel to reel players would like a word!
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  Hah! Nice call out, but they even required the 'reel' to keep them somewhat manageable. My dad had a reel to reel player. First time I heard Hocus Pocus by Focus was on that device. Still one of my top ten favourite songs. He's probably still got it too.
firecall 3y ago
Agreed. I was there for the late 80s and 90s and my personal experience is mixed! Now if a CD fails with a horrible scratch, it fails completely sometimes. However, CDs often got kicked around the interior of cars for months and you could pick them up, wipe them off, give them a polish and they’d still play! Tape would degrade naturally through usage. Tape twists and stretches. Tape players can and would destroy tapes. We never purchased new cassette tape audio. It was purely a portable disposable medium for the original Vinyl or CD. A way to copy music and play it in the car!
steponlego 3y ago
Most modern CD players have cheap mechanisms. The oldest, heavy duty CD players can often read right through damage that would result in skips on a modern player.

c1sc0 3y ago

That you are describing is called MiniDisc.

hinoki 3y ago

CD caddies existed for a brief time. I think early drives were much more sensitive to dust and scratches. https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retro-scan-of-the-week-cd-rom-caddy https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/842/retr...

lelanthran 3y ago

This actually existed; I remember, back in my youth, handling an optical disc for a Sun machine that was packaged the same way that floppies were - within a hard plastic enclosure with a little sliding mechanism that was activated by pushing the package into the slot (exactly the way 3.5" floppies worked).

genewitch 3y ago
Also DVD-RAM, when in the writer, had a shell. The single sided ones could be removed from the shell easily and put in a DVD drive (I do not recall if they worked in a regular DVD player) One of the biggest wastes of money, for me. I got way more use out of my minidisc stuff, which is another optical disc in a case. In fact I still have my net-MD recorder/player, and it works fine.
- devilbunny 3y ago
  Oh, if only they hadn't jacked up MiniDisc with all the copyright-related stuff. A beautiful replacement for the convenience of cassettes (portability, battery life) with most of the benefits of CD (better sound, can't be eaten by the motors). Unfortunately expensive and never took off in the US.
rickdeckard 3y ago
Yeah, my first CD-ROM drive was like this [1], the enclosure could be opened to place the CD inside. The drive came with one enclosure, I'm not aware that anyone (including me) ever bothered buying additional enclosures. This surely wasn't helped by the fact that Audio-CD's (with their mechanical trays) were already widespread and produced at large volume without such a cartridge-enclosure... [1]: https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Creative-CR-521-C-3.jpg https://www.clous.cz/wp-content/gallery/creative-cr-521-c/Cr...

hakfoo 3y ago

CDs seem to be pretty resilient compared to tapes, from my experience buying used media. A small percentage of CDs will be unrippable, but a fair number of tapes are torn or self-destruct, and the players can have tape-destroying failure modes, aside from being mostly collections of belts that inevitably stretch, melt, or snap. One I was fiddling with managed to wrap several metres of tape around the capstan shaft so tightly it had to be cut off with a penknife.

hurryer 3y ago
CDs can crack pretty easily.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  What do you do to crack a CD? Play frisbee? I grew up with CDs and never knew of one cracking. With sufficient scratching it was possibly to get them the skip, but even friends who kept CDs unboxed in piles round the CD player didn't have this problem.
  - hurryer 3y ago
    Sit on them. Because it's inside a bag, or under a blanket. Parent was talking that CDs are less tolerant of abusive handling.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      OK. There's a whole level of carelessness that never occurred to me as a teenager who grew up with CDs.
  - lodovic 3y ago
    No, but if you manage to scratch the aluminum foil layer on the backside, the CD instantly becomes useless. Or when you store cd's in large unboxed stacks, they can stick together, which can also damage the backside.

StableAlkyne 3y ago

>Tape needs that plastic exterior to even be viable Reel to reel players would like a word!

BLKNSLVR 3y ago
Hah! Nice call out, but they even required the 'reel' to keep them somewhat manageable. My dad had a reel to reel player. First time I heard Hocus Pocus by Focus was on that device. Still one of my top ten favourite songs. He's probably still got it too.

firecall 3y ago

Agreed. I was there for the late 80s and 90s and my personal experience is mixed! Now if a CD fails with a horrible scratch, it fails completely sometimes. However, CDs often got kicked around the interior of cars for months and you could pick them up, wipe them off, give them a polish and they’d still play! Tape would degrade naturally through usage. Tape twists and stretches. Tape players can and would destroy tapes. We never purchased new cassette tape audio. It was purely a portable disposable medium for the original Vinyl or CD. A way to copy music and play it in the car!

steponlego 3y ago

Most modern CD players have cheap mechanisms. The oldest, heavy duty CD players can often read right through damage that would result in skips on a modern player.