When it comes to the inventors of the digital compact disc (CD), people will immediately think of the names of two companies: Philips of the Netherlands and Sony of Japan. Because since the advent of the CD in the 1980s, the overwhelming publicity has made the names of these two companies deeply engraved in people's memories. However, there is news recently that CD was invented by an American physicist in the 1960s. And the scientist didn't get a penny from the huge profits from selling the CD. This new statement has undoubtedly attracted widespread attention. Is there really such a thing in the world?
Now, there are many materials, such as the Free Encyclopedia on the Internet, which was created on January 15, 2001 and has thousands of edits and new entries created every day by many participants from all over the world———— WIKIPEDIA——Wikipedia records that Philips and Sony own the CD invention rights. The relevant entry reads: Philips and Sony jointly developed the digital compact disc (CD) in 1980, and mass production began in Langenhagen, West Germany two years later. Later, Microsoft and Apple joined this camp and turned CD into CD-ROM in 1987, thus triggering a worldwide computer revolution.
A Russian website recently told such a little-known story:
In 1931, a boy was born in Bremerton, a city in the west-central part of Washington State, USA. James Russell invented the model airplane (remote control boat) at the age of 6. In 1953, Russell graduated from Reed College in Oregon (ranked sixth among the ten hardest colleges in the United States) with a bachelor's degree in physics. A physics enthusiast, he found a job in a General Electric laboratory and became one of the first researchers to apply and develop color displays and input keyboards. There, he participated in a series of experimental programs and designed and built the world's first electron beam welding equipment.
In 1965, the Pacific Northwest Laboratory was established in Richlund. Russell became a senior scientific researcher at the laboratory. From then on, he seemed to realize the direction in which he should devote himself to research in the future - how to preserve sound quality. He is a fan of classical music. Like many music lovers of the era, he was often frustrated by the deterioration of the sound quality of old plastic records over time. To this end, he vowed to perfect it, and he even wanted to replace the old-fashioned playing needle with the spikes from a cactus.
During the day on a Saturday, Russell suddenly had an idea: to use a digital recording and recovery system to completely change the way sound is recorded and played. Because in this way, the various components will not come into physical contact during the sound recording and playback process, and it will not cause any physical damage that affects the sound quality. As a result, a technologically revolutionary idea was born in Russell's mind. By then, Russell was already familiar with digital recording formats based on magnetic tape and computer punch cards. He believes that the best "memory" should be carried out by beams of light. At this time, his mind was filled with "0 and 1", "darkness and light". He thought that if the codes could be packed closely enough together, they could be used to preserve not just musical notes but large encyclopedias.
Although Russell did not realize his idea immediately in the institute, he completed the plan to convert analog signals into digital signals, which laid the foundation for him to realize his idea. After about two years, Russell invented the first light-digital recording and recovery system. Just like that, the first digital compact disc (CD) was born. Russell patented his invention in 1970.
In 1970, the inventor continued to refine his invention, making it suitable for storing any form of data. Like many new inventions that define their times, the advent of the CD did not immediately arouse investor interest. But in 1971, venture capital businessman Eli Jacobs founded Optical Records and invited Russell to join his company. The company intends to develop video compact discs (VCDs). Because there was an idea at the time: record TV programs on small and exquisite plastic carriers and send them through the postal system so that people can enjoy their favorite TV broadcasts at any time.
In 1974, at an exhibition in Chicago, the company demonstrated an optical-digital television with recording and playback capabilities. It was the first device capable of converting color images into numbers, but investors remained indifferent and the world remained unchanged.
Another year later, in the summer of 1975, representatives of the Dutch Philips Company visited Russell's laboratory and did not rate Russell's research too highly. According to Russell's recollection, these representatives said to him at the time: "This (referring to Russell's invention) is very good for preserving materials, but we cannot use it to solve audiovisual problems."
It should be said, For several years before visiting Russell's lab, the Dutch company Philips had been producing its own optical discs for analog optical walk-throughs. The Dutch were convinced that simulation was the only possible solution. "Because Philip invested 60 million US dollars in the development of optical discs, no one can tell Philip that they are wrong." Russell commented.
However, just two months after Philips representatives visited the inventor's laboratory, Philips quietly produced an optical disc that was exactly the same as Russell's invention. Since then, in addition to Philips, Japan's Sony and other companies have used Russell's technological inventions crazily, without mentioning Russell's name. This makes one have to suspect that Russell's thoughts inspired others.
Russell did not want to monopolize the optical disc technology and take it as his own. He even said calmly: "It's hard to say whether the things produced by others are based on my invention. You know, two or more people in different places may have the same idea at the same time. There is nothing special about this. . It is entirely possible that we are working in parallel..."
In 1992, Warner Bros. Entertainment and other optical disc manufacturers filed a lawsuit against Optical Records. In the end, the optical record company paid US$30 million to destroy the patent rights, and the court finally awarded the exclusive rights of the CD process to the optical record company. However, the inventor Russell received no money because his 20 optical disc patents belonged to his employer, the Optical Record Company.
However, this encounter did not stop the inventor from moving forward. He is still working on optical systems for data preservation. He was thinking about a new contender for hard drive storage power, optical random access memory (ORAM). There is no spinning disc in this system, not even a moving part, the data is read entirely by light.
In 1991, Russell and his partner Paul Nye established Ioptics, a company specializing in ORAM. Despite a multi-million dollar investment from Microsoft, the system has yet to find a market.
In the past long years, the inventor who applied for more than 50 patents still lived an ordinary life and was still engaged in the research he was obsessed with. The only recent incident in global reports that reminded Russell of his existence and made him feel famous was that the 53-year-old won the Vollum Award of the International Society of Optical Engineering in 2000 for his outstanding contributions to science and technology.