The humble compact cassette, invented for office dictation by Philips Electronics Corp. in the early 1960s, has been about the biggest success story in recorded music. It’s cheap, portable and ...

The Mini-Disc never caught on in the U.S. But during the 1990s, the format did in its native Japan, where MD isn’t yet dead. Launching in 1991, MD was the coolest format. It was like a compact disc, ...