Two song Digital 45s now available in iTunes

I have a whole bunch of 3" cd singles from the 80s. They used to come with a clip on adaptor as the tray in some cd players didn't have the inlet groove that a 3" disc sits in.

I guess metaphorically they were supposed to be the 45 of the digital age, but really they were abandoned quite quickly, probably because at the time the rules behind what was a single and what was an album seemed to be all over the place, governed by how many songs you could have on a single, how many original songs (ie not just remixes of the title track) you could have, and how long each of the variables just stated could be (for eg, I have a one track single somewhere that is 40 minutes in length, just because the rules at one point allowed for it).

But really, their demise was most likely due to the fact that they pretty much cost the same amount of money to make as their 5" brother, but required a different line set up - so it was more economical to print singles on 5" discs anyway.

Oh I should add that my point about them being abandoned because people wanted to flirt with the rules governing track count and length was because obviously the 3" disc has a way shorter runtime capacity than a 5" disc.

The industry evolved out of it being useful.