The history of the optical drive is one of dueling standards, and it’s not over yet.
Data compact disks, first showed up in 1985 thanks to a standard agreed upon by Sony and Philips, still sell billions of disks annually. But CD capacity is insufficient for many purposes, so digital versatile disks (DVDs) were developed in the mid-1990s, a compromise between competing technologies. However, competing groups have yet to compromise on writable DVDs, leaving the industry with three competing formats.