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Mini CDs

fmueller

fmueller

Super Member
I have recently become interested in vinyl - only ever had CDs and cassettes before, and looking at the huge size and weight of a record compared to a CD made me remember the mini CDs that I bought back in the 80s when CDs were new. As if a CD wasn't small enough!

I only have four mini CDs - Phil Collins, Scott McKenzie, Gary Moore, and a test CD that German hifi magazine Audio sold as a set together with a sampler of 'pop classics'. This set also included an adapter that allows you to play mini CDs in a player whose tray doesn't have the grove to center mini CDs. Surprisingly, despite the low popularity of the minis I don't think I am aware of ever seeing a CDP that would require the adapter! Even CD-ROM drives on computers seem to accommodate the minis, and some years back I got a business card from somebody that was actually a CD-ROM. It had business card format with rounded edges and fit right into the grove for mini CDs of the CD-ROM drive. It contained a short video about the product the guy was promoting. Pretty nifty, and I wish I had held on to it. I've never seen anything of the kind again.

Anyhow, does anybody know more about this format? Is anybody collecting them? Just curious.

Frank

Mini-CDs.jpg

All four mini CDs I own together with the regular CD one of them came with for size comparision.
 
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not me, but i remember them for sure. i think they probably fell through because you need a tray-type cd player to play them. maybe even some of those wouldn't play them? no idea. cool, though! :thmbsp:
 
There were some slot-load players (Sharp for certain) that would play them.
Way back when, I purchased a boxed set of Queen EP's in the mini format for a friend's Christmas present.
 
I've got about 3 or 4 Sony promotional mini-CD's from 1988 with the top 40 hits of the time on them. I will have to dig them up.
 
There are not Sony, but all the major labels at the time are represented. I remember them turning up at the car stereo place I worked at during that time. Quite a flashback of artists on there, lol. As you can see, they have been around, but the discs themselves are in good shape and play fine.
 

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gogofast said:
way cool!
so, are those singles? or full albums?
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I don't think they have enough space for a full album. Of my four, three are singles, and the other one is a compilation of test sounds.

Some further research reveals that there is actually a nice little entry about mini CDs on Wikipedia. :thmbsp:

Frank
 
They play on a lot of players because they were part of the original spec for CDs, as laid down in the Red Book.

Sony intended them as a replacement for 45s. Never happened because the manufacturing price was the same for them as for a full-size CD. After all, everything is the same, except for a bit of polycarbonate.

Soooo, the Major Labels decided that the public didn't need to replace 45s, they could just buy the album.

And so they remained an oddity, most often used for promotions.
 
I had one that came free with a case of Coke many years ago.

That size disc has come back recently for use in DVD camcorders. You can buy blank 3" DVDs at most electronics stores.
 
I have one that was a promo for Adam Sandlers - Lonesome Kicker - it is shapped like a football. I actually played it in one of my portable CD players and it played fine. One of the most unique CDs I own.
 

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Those were very popular in Japan in the 80's. I was stationed there and most of the singles were sold in that format. They also had cd rental shops that rented of course cd's and sold the singles as well as mountains of blank cassettes.
 
Once in a while my company gets mini cd's with drivers and instruction manuals on them for odd components we need in system configurations.
 
Fletch said:
I have one that was a promo for Adam Sandlers - Lonesome Kicker - it is shapped like a football. I actually played it in one of my portable CD players and it played fine. One of the most unique CDs I own.
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That one looks very funky! If anybody is collecting them, that would have to be the holy grail :yes:
 
I never actually played it until the other day as I thought it may cause harm to my player. It has 2 versions of Lonesome Kicker - check Ebay as they seem to not end high. I have mine mounted on the wall.
 
The only player I've come across that could not play them (slot loaders aside) was a Pioneer 6 disc stacker. But iirc there was an optional cassette with the extra recess for them.

Mini cds are a very rare here in Aus, I suspect they were never manufactured here.
 
I just bought a new compact memory card for my new camera and it came with some photo recovery software on a mini CD.

It wouldn't be bad to burn up a bunch as mini travel music for my AIWA portable CDP.

Anyone know how much data they hold?

OK I just checked Amazon.com as well as a bunch of other places carry them they seam to hold 210MB of info about 24 minutes of music the description says so a little more then an average vinyl album side.

Prices aren't bad at all.

http://www.amazon.com/Memorex-Pocket-Mini-Discs-50-Pack-Spindle/dp/B00005NHGP
 
Asteroid said:
Mini cds are a very rare here in Aus, I suspect they were never manufactured here.
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Maby for ones released with music on them, but I've bought lots of blank mini CD's (Not DVD) to burn MP3's onto then play on my MP3 CD Walkman, was doing that about 4 or 5 years ago. I haven't bought any for a while though, but you can still get them from JB's. They are 185MB which is enough to fit 2-3 albums on in MP3 format. Although at the time I was encoding at 128K so more like 4-5, which was handy because of how much music you could have and take up hardly any space.

EDIT: Just read Mark W's post, I guess the newer ones must have more capacity than the one's I was buying.
 
I see the blank mini-cds all the time at Circuit City and for some reason Walgreen's. Usually in a 3-5 pack. Mini-DVDs are also common around here.
 
I remember having the whole Coke set. They were music samplers. The only artist I remember was Firehouse.
 
Fletch said:
I have one that was a promo for Adam Sandlers - Lonesome Kicker - it is shapped like a football. I actually played it in one of my portable CD players and it played fine. One of the most unique CDs I own.
Click to expand...

That's a different type of disc altogether: it's been cut.

Those were popular (again for promos) for a while, but they seem to have died down now.

The manufacturer starts off with a regular 12 cm. CD, then has special equipment to cut them to any shape his client wanted.
 
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