C.c. CD-ROM-Compact Disc-Read-Only Memory (What Is This)

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CD-ROM stands for compact disc read only memory. A CD-ROM can store about 700MB of data. That is enough to hold about 3000000 text pages. Because CDs are inexpensive to produce yet provide access to so much storage, CD-ROM has become the medium of choice for publishing multimedia applications.

CDS bring music, literature, and video to your desktop, allow you to share animation, multimedia presentations, and software applications, and introduce you to the latest 3D games, medical journals, and reference materials. For years, computer systems have come standard with at least one CD-ROM drive. However, today’s technological advances offer other, more versatile CD options to consumers than the traditional read-only CD-ROM drive. Advanced options include CD-Recorder drives that can write or record data only once to a CD, CD-Re-writer drives that can write, erase, and rewrite data to a CD, or faster and more flexible CD-ROM drives that can also read media produced in a CD-R or CD-RW drive.

The speed of the CD-ROM is measured in how many thousands of characters it can read per second. The first CD-ROM drives could transfer data at a rate of 140K per second. Double speed CD-ROM drives can transfer data at twice that speed, or 300K per second. Now 42x are also available.

Multisession refers to a CD-ROM drive that can play back CDs that have been recorded on more than once.