90s CD-ROM Boom! (Notes. Comments, corrections welcome!)

CD-ROM BOOM

The push for mass use of CD-ROM “for the common man” came with the initial installation, and subsequent standardization of CD-ROM drives in the personal computer in the late 1980s. On their own CD-ROM drives were expensive, costing between $600 to $1,200 (roughly $1,130 to $2,260 in 2013).^[1] CD-ROM titles were also few and expensive. The first personal computer system that came with installed, low-cost CD-ROM drives were the Headstart LX-CD and Headstart III-CD, made in 1989 by Philips subsidiary, Headstart Technologies Company.^[2] They company was able to reduce the price of CD-ROM drives by half. CD-ROM became immediately popular, and by 1990 drives were on backorder by two months with Apple.^[3] Other companies, including as Panasonic, Pioneer, Toshiba, IBM, Tandy Corporation, Microsoft (who preferred the term “multimedia”), and Warner New Media, all promised CD-ROM drives as standard features within the coming years, with an expected growth of the CD-ROM market of 40% between 1988 and 1993.^[4]

Early Video Games Scare

It could be argued that the origin of the Senate hearings of video game violence in 1993 begins with the game Death Race, released in 1976 by Exidy Inc., which was inspired by the dystopian film Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel, 1975). The film features a government promoted, widely popular, cross-country car race that requires contestants to run down pedestrians for points. In the black and white, coin-operated arcade game, a player (or two) controls an on-screen car and runs over stick-figure icons called “gremlins.” When one is hit, it is replaced with a cross grave marker. The more gremlins hit, the more grave markers there are to navigate around, the harder the game is to play. The instructions on the game itself stated simply, “Hit gremlins for points. Use reverse for quicker getaway after crash.”^[1]

Death Race screenshot. Courtesy: The International Arcade Museum, http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7541