TAPE, 8-TRACK

The 8-track tape is a magnetic-tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette tape (which pre-dated the 8-track system) surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded music. The main advantage of the 8-track cartridge was that it didn’t need to be “flipped over” to play other tracks. Originally, magnetic tape sound reproduction was the reel-to-reel tape recorder which was first available in the U.S. in the late 1940s, but it was too expensive and bulky for amateur home-use until well into the 1950s. Vinyl records were more practical at that time. A lot of changes were made to the 8-track throughout the years to make it practical and more widely used.