On Mon, 13 Jul 1998, Gernot Vonhoegen wrote:
> can sombody enlighten me on what an 8-track is and if this is of any
> use? I believe its some form of old fashioned cassette thingy.
This was the brainchild of Bill Lear (of Lear Jet fame), and was a sort of
"cassette tape", circa 1965. The cartridges were about the size of a
"Walkman" type radio. They were more or less a "continuous-loop" tape,
with four "programs" on each tape (and, being stereo, two channels, so
4x2=8 -- the 8-track). The "format" was pretty rigid in terms of length;
some prerecorded music on 8-track was arranged in a different order than
one would be used to finding on the vinyl album or cassette tape to fit
the time constraints. Either that, or a song might be interrupted by
clicks and such while the player changed from one program to the next. One
could easily move through programs 1,2,3,4, but rewinding was not
possible. Recording your own 8-track was possible, but nowhere near as
commonplace as with cassettes.
It was interesting, and it was quite popular for some time, until cassette
tapes really came into their own. 8-track format pretty much disappeared
in the 1980s. It's primarily a novelty artifact now, IMHO, although it's
undoubtedly considered collectible by some.
--Andy
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