1979 - Sony introduced the TPS-L2 Walkman portable audio cassette player, inaugurating a new era of personal music listening.
1980 - The Philips/Sony compact disc standard was finalized. The Philips development began in 1969, and their prototype in 1972 used a laser beam to read a track of pits as the coded FM video signal. Sony agreed to collaborate with Philips to develop standards. The compact disc as sold to the public would be made of plastic coated with a layer of aluminium and protected with a final layer of lacquer. The master disc was made of glass, coated with photo emulsion, exposed to laser, then etched in chemical bath leaving pits in a spiral groove. The CD rotated at variable speeds of 200 rpm near the edge to 500 rpm near the centre. The size would be 12cm (5 inches), use 16-bit encoding and a sampling frequency of 44,100 per second. The maximum playing time would be

| |
|Mitsubishi, Hitachi & Sony show digital audio |
|disc prototypes at the Tokyo Audio Fair. |
|JVC Develops Digital Audio Process |
|1978 |Philips releases the video disc player |
| |Sony sells the PCM-1600 and PCM-1 (digital audio processors) |
| |"Digital Audio Disc Convention" Held in Tokyo, Japan with 35 |
| |different manufacturers. |
| |Philips proposes that a worldwide standard be set. |
| |Polygram (division of Philips) determined that polycarbonate |
| |would be the best material for the CD. |
| |Decision made for data on a CD to start on the inside and spiral|
| |towards the outer edge. |
| |Disc diameter originally set at 115mm. |
| |Type of laser selected for CD Players. |
|1979 |Prototype CD System demonstrated in Europe and Japan. |
| |Sony agrees to join in collaboration. |
| |Sony & Philips compromise on the standard sampling rate of a CD |
| |-- 44.1 kHz (44,100 samples per second) |
| |Philips accepts Sony's proposal for 16-bit audio. |
| |Reed-Solomon code adopted after Sony's suggestion. |
| |Maximum playing time decided to be slighty more that 74 minutes.|
| |Disc diameter changed to 120mm to allow for 74 minutes of 16-bit|
| |stereo sound with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz |
|1980 |Compact Disc standard proposed by Philips & Sony. |
|1981 |Matsushita accepts Compact Disc Standard |
| |Digital Audio Disc Committee also accepts Compact Disc Standard.|
| |Sharp achieves production of semiconductor laser. |
|