This is something I read in a forum today:

"Philips has developed and manufactured SA-CD players since 1991 and
these were sold at various fairs through out the world for a very hefty
price I might add, and with these player came various sampler discs
(these were full albums though), the diamonds and pearls disc being 1 of
them (these were fully authorised discs), these discs were also offered
and sold at various retail outlets all over the world, the free record
shop indeed being one of them. The 1999 year is the year the SA-CD was
produced on a commercial scale, just like 1982 was the year the normal
CD was produced on a commercial scale (1978 being the year that cd
players were sold on fairs like the old SA-CD players were sold early in
the 90s)."

Can anybody confirm this? I wouldn't have been surprised to read that
prototypes were already available in 1997-98, but 1991? If "prototypes"
really existed in 1991, are they compatible with today's SACD players?

Same question for the CD. According to this site, the Compact Disc
standard was proposed in 1980:

http://www.oneoffcd.com/info/historycd.cfm

I can't believe CDs were already made in 1978 (at least CDs that can be
read in today's CD players).

Olivier