Hardware and software in a nontechnical environment

At present CD-ROMs are almost entirely limited to the business, professional and educational worlds. The technology has not penetrated into the domestic market to a significant extent although optical discs are often thought to have enormous potential in this sector. There are a number of reasons why CD has made little impact of which the most obvious are the high cost of the equipment, and the nature of the products currently available. As hardware and disc costs fall these barriers will no doubt be lowered and other considerations will become important. The paper focuses on one of these other considerations; namely the technical problems currently faced by users of optical disc systems