History
Prior to the wide use of compact discs in computers, floppy disks were used as boot disks, which generally had a small operating system and limited tools.
Programmers adapted the compact discs (originally developed for storing audio) for use as media for storing and distributing large amounts of computer data. This data may also include application and operating-system software, sometimes packaged and archived in compressed formats. Later, it became convenient and useful to boot the computer directly from compact disc, often with a minimal working system to install a full system onto a hard drive.
The first Compact Disc drives on personal computers were generally much too slow for running complex operating systems. Often, the computer could not boot from optical discs. When operating systems were distributed on compact discs, either a boot floppy or the CD itself would boot specifically, and only, to install onto a hard drive. The first live CD was FM Towns OS first released in 1989.
Read more about this topic: Live CD
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)