Before we start lets get this straight - this article has nothing to do with the Essex based band The Dead Formats... If this isn't what you want to hear then you might as well quit reading now otherwise carry on...
Whilst clearing out a butt load of paper files in the archive room at work (my predecessor was something of a hoarder) I came across something I hadn't seen, or even thought about for a long time... this -
For those of you too young to remember what this is it's NOT a coaster (although it may as well be for all the use it gets for it's intended purpose), it's a 3.5" Floppy disk, this is what fits into that pointless slot on the front of older model PC's... the one called the A drive. This got me thinking about all those old and disused physical formats, not only for computers but also for music and video...
HD-DVD
Toshiba's contender for the HD video industry was short lived lasting only from 2006 until 2008 when they finally gave up the battle against Sony's Blu-ray format which was always going to win the format war based on 3 things -
- * Firstly it was the format offering superior storage capacity (50gb maximum against the HD-DVD's 30gb maximum)
- * Secondly it was the disc format Sony were using for their upcoming PlayStation 3 console
- * Lastly it was the disc format of choice for the American porn industry which churns out more films per month than Hollywood do in a year
CD-ROM
Not really a dead format yet but certainly one that's going the way of the dinosaur. Up until recently it was the preferred media of choice for pirates everywhere to get their latest 'bangin choons' from their porn riddled PC's in to their ridiculously modified cars so they could cruise down the local high street at five miles an hour with their windows open impressing the 'girls' hanging around outside the local supermarket. Nowadays they just download it onto their iPod, iPhone, or other MP3 player and plug it in via the AUX port on their overpriced car stereos - this is the only thing that's changed in this scenario.
MINIDISC
The bastard offspring of the 3.5" Floppy Disc and the CD-ROM the Minidisc felt like it was here one day and gone the next but MD players were still being manufactured up until March 2013. The Minidisc failed to gain the popularity of the CD and low initial uptake meant many artists weren't releasing their albums in this format and stereos containing Minidisc units remained prohibitively expensive forcing many adopters to hook their MD Walkman up to their stereo in order to record music to listen to. It's popularity declined further in the late 90's when the first MP3 players appeared and many users began to migrate to digital format instead of hard format.
LASERDISC
The precursor to the modern day DVD, this was a movie on a CD the size of an LP. The first Laserdiscs were actually made in 1978 and offered superior video quality to VHS and could also handle analog and digital audio whilst VHS was mostly analog only. Laserdiscs were initially cheaper to manufacture than VHS but by the end of the 1980's the cost of disc pressing was nearly 5 times the cost of VHS due to the amount of plastic and the expensive glass mastering process. In 1984 Pioneer produced the first commercial Laserdisc player but unfortunately it never took off due to cost and a lack of popularity outside of the US.
The precursor to the modern day DVD, this was a movie on a CD the size of an LP. The first Laserdiscs were actually made in 1978 and offered superior video quality to VHS and could also handle analog and digital audio whilst VHS was mostly analog only. Laserdiscs were initially cheaper to manufacture than VHS but by the end of the 1980's the cost of disc pressing was nearly 5 times the cost of VHS due to the amount of plastic and the expensive glass mastering process. In 1984 Pioneer produced the first commercial Laserdisc player but unfortunately it never took off due to cost and a lack of popularity outside of the US.
VHS / BETAMAX
Back in the mid 1970's Sony developed the Betamax format which they pitched to the industry as a standard format for the good of everyone. JVC shocked Sony when they refused to back this format and developed their own rival format known as VHS kicking of the videotape format war of the 80's. Betamax eventually lost the format war despite offering a superior product due to the perceived benefits of the longer recording times offered by the VHS format and, like the Blu-ray, being chosen as the format of choice by the porn industry.
COMPACT CASSETTE
The compact cassette was originally designed for use with dictaphones but following improvements in sound quality this format eventually replaced 8-Track and Reel-to-Reel tape recording for most domestic applications. Pre-recorded music cassettes first appeared on the market in the mid 60's and their popularity continued to grow through the 80's with the advent of 'hi-fi' and the Sony Walkman. In addition to pre-recorded music, cassettes were also used for home recording (with many youngsters using them to record the Top 40 from their radios on a Sunday night in a primitive form of piracy) and for games and data storage on early computers. Sales of cassette's were over taken by those of CD's in the early 90's and steadily continued to decline dropping from 442 million units sold in 1990 to only 34,000 in 2009.
VINYL (LP & SINGLE)
Introduced in 1948 by Columbia Records the Long Play was adopted as the industry standard for all phonographic recordings and, despite a few minor refinements and a the addition of stereophonic sound capability, has remained the standard format for the last 65 years. Despite it's decline over recent years there are still labels that release albums on Vinyl for record enthusiasts and for use by DJ's in clubs.
FLOPPY DISKS
Originally developed in the late 60's Floppy disks were originally manufactured as an 8" format then later 5.25" and finally 3.5" formats. Floppy's became popular in the 80's and 90's to transfer data, store backups, and distribute software for home computers. By the early 90's increasing software size meant that more and more disks were needed for the distribution of software packages (Beneath a Steel Sky on the Amiga A500 needed 11 disks!!!) and in 1996 it was estimated that there were approximately 5 billion Floppy disks in use worldwide.
