On the 17th August 1982, the very first commercial compact disc was produced in the German town of Langenhagen. Although it was a number of months before the disc was actually available to purchase, the advent of the CD marked a seismic shift in the way people listened to music.

Having initially developed separate prototype digital audio discs, engineers at electronics giants Philips and Sony came together in 1979 to develop a standardised digital audio disc. Interestingly, this was happening while they sat on opposite sides of the VHS-Betamax war over home video formats.

In 1980 the engineers agreed on and ...