Compact Disks - ReWritable

ALSO CALLED: Rewritable Disks, CD-RW, CD-ReWritable Disks
DEFINITION: CD-RW (for compact disc, rewriteable) is a compact disc (CD) format that allows repeated recording on a disc. The CD-RW format was introduced by Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Philips, Ricoh, and Sony, in a 1997 supplement to Philips and Sony's Orange Book. CD-RW is Orange Book III (CD-MO was I, while CD-R was II). Prior to the release of the Orange Book, CDs had been read-only audio (CD-Digital Audio,  … 
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COMPACT DISKS - REWRITABLE DEFINITION (continued): …  described fully in the Red Book), to be played in CD players, and multimedia (CD-ROM), to be played in computers' CD-ROM drives. After the Orange Book, any user with a CD Recorder drive could create their own CDs from their desktop computers. CD-RW drives can write both CD-R and CD-RW discs and can read any type of CD.Like regular CDs (all the various formats are based on the original Red Book CD-DA), CD-Rs and CD-RWs are composed of a polycarbonate plastic substrate, a thin reflective metal coating, and a protective outer coating. CD-R is a write once, read many (WORM) format, in which a layer … 
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