The Orange Book was first published by Sony and Philips in 1988 and comes in two part, Part I (which is about MO or magneto-optical drives) and Part II (which is about Compact Disc Recordable).

Compact Disc Recordable is a disc similar to CDDA in physical aspect but slightly different in the structure. They are a polycarbonate substrate coated with organic dye with a reflective surface layered onto the dye enclosed in a protective coating.

CD-Recordable added a whole new dimension to the CD family, which was the ability to create a disc in a desktop environment. A non-recordable read-only medium, whose use was limited to applications, was no longer restricted by the "lots of static information to lots of users" rule of thumb of replicated media.

There was a price to pay for this specialized adaptation of the original disc, and that was incompatibility. The power of recording discs on the desktop was a package deal and brought with it the responsibility of making discs that would work. As the specialization developed, so did the uses to which the specialization could be put; this only increased the incompatibility problem, even though improvements in reliability kept pace with the proliferation and specialization of the recordable disc.