Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.

The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and is capable of holding uncompressed stereo audio. First released in Japan in October 1982,…