The first mass-consumer media format was a cylinder. It was similar to the vinyl records that replaced it in the 1920s. These vinyl records reigned supreme for the next 60 years.

There were a few different varieties of these records, but they all were pretty much the same; grooves that were scratched over with a needle to produce noise.

Much like these records, the things that tried to replace them were varied, but similar. We had the game cartridges of Nintendo and Atari fame, we had 8-track cassettes and audio tapes, we even had a “war” between Betamax and VHS video tapes. The cartridges with a tape in them were all magnetic. No longer was there a needle scratching over grooves in a surface, we now had digital media, magnetic heads reading magnetic data on a length of plastic tape.

The game cartridges were actually like little computers. They had software on them and when they were plugged into the right port, the system could read the software and let you interact with it.

These cartridges rallied for 10-15 years, but by the mid-’90s, we’d come full circle, so to speak. Laserdiscs were available in the late ’70s, and were a logical spin-off from records. Instead of using a needle to scratch over a line of holes and ridges, Laserdiscs used lasers to read bits on a reflective surface. The theory was very similar, but they were also expensive, giving cartridges a chance to try and take over. Laserdiscs spawned CDs, and the cartridge quickly faded into the background once again.