Happy 30th birthday, compact disc. The CD was introduced on October 1, 1982 — but in early 1984 it was still slowly rolling out to consumer markets. In this surprising demo onstage at the very first TED, in February 1984, Mickey Schulhof of the Sony Corporation describes and then demonstrates the use of “compact disc digital audio.”

In the screengrab above, Mickey Schulhof of Sony is saying: “The disc itself is about 5 inches in diameter. It can record one hour of stereo music on one side — and it is only a one-sided disc, it’s not meant to be played on two sides…”

Love this? Watch another talk from TED1 in 1984 — Nicholas Negroponte’s 4 predictions for the future (3 of them correct).

PS: The inevitable animated gif:

In this classic talk from TEDGlobal 2009, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister explains why, every seven years, he closes his New York-based shop for a full 365 days. We here at TED aren’t quite that extreme, but we too believe in the restorative power of vacation time. And thus, for the next two weeks, the TED office is closed.

While we won’t be posting new videos during that time, we aren’t about to leave you hanging. We’ve launched a brand new feature, Surprise Me!, to help you navigate through talks you haven’t yet seen from our 1200+ video archive. Not sure what to watch? Let this new serendipity engine handpick a playlist of gems for you. Want 20 minutes of ingenious talks? Or 40 minutes of courageous ones? Your wish is our command.

And never fear, the TED Blog will still be here. Make sure to check in here for fresh content every weekday.