Beethoven's Ninth Symphony CD-ROM
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony CD-ROM was one of the first titles to couple a CD-ROM with an Audio CD.[1][2] This title, a companion to Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, was developed in 1989 by the Voyager Company in Apple Computer's HyperCard, using custom audio XCMDs developed at Voyager. The lead instructor and creative voice was UCLA music instructor Robert Winter.[3]
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony CD-ROM, while offering black and white images on a 512×342 resolution display, offered full 44 kHz stereo audio by controlling an off-the-shelf audio CD in the CD-ROM player.[4]
Historically, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony CD-ROM is of importance as it was an early example of interactive media that reached the consumer market, before the popularization of the Internet or DVDs.[1][5] On witnessing the CD-ROM, Bill Gates reportedly said: "We've finally seen what CD-ROM was made for".[5]
References
- 1 2 Ortega, Élika (2025). Binding Media: Hybrid Print-Digital Literature from Across the Americas (ebook ed.). Stanford University Press. ISBN 9781503641952 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Tröndle, Martin, ed. (2020). Classical Concert Studies: A Companion to Contemporary Research and Performance (ebook ed.). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000171709 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Reas, Casey; Ben Fry (2014). Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists. MIT Press. pp. 253–255. ISBN 9780262028288 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Duggan, Mary Kay (January–March 1991). "Multimedia Databases for Public Service in Music Libraries". Fontes Artis Musicae. 38 (1). International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres: 49–55. JSTOR 23508056.
- 1 2 Dell’Antonio, Andrew (October 8, 2013). "Beethoven IX: The App". AMS Musicology Now. American Musicological Society. Archived from the original on March 10, 2026.