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:
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)