Related Research Articles
The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips, the Compact Cassette was released in August 1963.
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, which pre-dated the 8-track system, surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded music.
A cassette deck is a type of tape machine for playing and recording audio cassettes that does not have a built-in power amplifier or speakers, and serves primarily as a transport. It can be a part of an automotive entertainment system, a part of a portable mini system or a part of a home component system. In the latter case it is also called a component cassette deck or just a component deck.
Background music is a mode of musical performance in which the music is not intended to be a primary focus of potential listeners, but its content, character, and volume level are deliberately chosen to affect behavioral and emotional responses in humans such as concentration, relaxation, distraction, and excitement. Listeners are uniquely subject to background music with no control over its volume and content. The range of responses created are of great variety, and even opposite, depending on numerous factors such as, setting, culture, audience, and even time of day.
The Enterprise is a Zilog Z80-based home computer announced in 1983, but due to a series of delays, was not commercially available until 1985. It was developed by British company Intelligent Software and marketed by Enterprise Computers.
The Exatron Stringy Floppy is a continuous-loop tape drive developed by Exatron.
The Muntz Stereo-Pak, commonly known as the 4-track cartridge, is a magnetic tape sound recording cartridge technology.
The ZX Microdrive is a magnetic-tape data storage system launched in July 1983 by Sinclair Research for its ZX Spectrum home computer. It was proposed as a faster-loading alternative to the cassette and cheaper than a floppy disk, but it suffered from poor reliability and lower speed.
PlayTape is a 1⁄8 inch (3.2 mm) audiotape format and mono or stereo playback system introduced in 1966 by Frank Stanton. It is a two-track system, and was launched to compete with existing 4-track cartridge technology. The cartridges play anywhere from eight to 24 minutes, and are continuous. Because of its portability, PlayTape was an almost instant success, and over 3,000 artists had published in this format by 1968. White cases usually meant about eight songs were on the tape.
The Fidelipac, commonly known as a "NAB cartridge" or simply "cart", is a magnetic tape sound recording format, used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as radio commercials, jingles, station identifications, and music, and for indoor background music. Fidelipac is the official name of this industry standard audio tape cartridge. It was developed in 1954 by inventor George Eash, and commercially introduced in 1959 by Collins Radio Co. at the 1959 NAB Convention. The cartridge was often used at radio stations until the late 1990s, when such formats as MiniDisc and computerized broadcast automation predominated.
Seeburg was an American design and manufacturing company of automated musical equipment, such as orchestrions, jukeboxes, and vending equipment. Before it began manufacturing its signature suite of jukebox products, Seeburg was considered to be one of the "big four" of the top coin-operated phonograph companies alongside AMI, Wurlitzer, and Rock-Ola. At the height of jukebox popularity, Seeburg machines were synonymous with the technology and a major quotidian brand of American teenage life. The company went out of business after being sold to Stern Electronics in 1982.
DMX, Inc., formerly Audio Environments, Inc., and later AEI Music Network, Inc., was a "multi-sensory" branding agency based in Austin, Texas. DMX also provided music for cable and satellite television networks worldwide, including DSTV in Africa. It was the first company to offer music by satellite.
The Seeburg 1000 Background Music System is a phonograph designed and built by the Seeburg Corporation to play background music from special 162⁄3 RPM vinyl records in offices, restaurants, retail businesses, factories and similar locations. Seeburg provided a service similar to that of Muzak.
The Tefifon is an audio playback format, developed and manufactured in Germany, that utilizes cartridges loaded with an endlessly looped reel of plastic tape. It is somewhat similar to the later 4-track and 8-track magnetic audio tape cartridges, but with grooves engraved into the tape, like a phonograph record. The grooves were engraved in a helical fashion across the width of the tape, in a manner similar to Dictaphone's Dictabelt format. The grooves are read with a stylus and amplified pickup in the player's transport. A Tefifon cartridge, known as a "Tefi", can hold up to four hours of music; therefore, most releases for the format are usually compilations of popular hits or dance music, operas, and operettas. Tefifon players were not sold by television and radio dealers in Germany, but rather sold directly by special sales outlets affiliated with Tefi.
Matthew "Mat" Taylor, better known by his YouTube handle Techmoan, is a British YouTuber and blogger, specializing in consumer tech reviews and retrotech documentaries about technology of historical interest.
Bernard August Cousino was an American audio technology inventor. He invented an endless loop tape cartridge design in 1952, known as the Audio Vendor, under U.S. Patent 2804401A. The tape is pulled from the inside of a loose tape roll making it spin to wind the returning tape onto the roll again. Initially, this mechanism was mounted on a reel to reel tape recorder. Later Cousino developed a plastic housing to be hung on some tape recorders. At first, the magnetic coating was wound facing the inside of the reel. This cartridge was marketed by John Herbert Orr as the Orrtronic Tapette. Newer cartridges had the magnetic coating wound facing outside of the reel, which required a special recorder to operate it, but offered comfortable, simple insertion of the cartridge without threading the tape. These more compact cartridges do not require any bottom spare for the tape head assembly. That would inspire George Eash to make the Fidelipac tape cartridge, which itself inspired the Stereo-Pak tape cartridge.
The Cantata 700 is a commercial background music system and corresponding cartridge format developed by 3M that was in common use from 1965 until the 1990s.
George H. Eash was an American inventor of several magnetic tape audio cartridges having a single tape reel. In 1950s he worked next desk to Bernard Cousino, who invented the endless tape loop, using it at first on an open reel. Eash created further cartridges using this tape loop like the Fidelipac, also known as "NAB-Cartridge" or even "cart" and used in broadcast, and as a consultant of Earl "Madman" Muntz the 4-Track cartridge, known as the Muntz Stereo-Pak or CARtridge. With the Lear 8-Track cartridge Eash's patent plea failed.
HiPac, is an audio tape cartridge format, introduced in August 1971 on the Japanese consumer market by Pioneer and discontinued in 1973 due to lack of demand. In 1972 it only achieved a market share of 3% in equipping new cars. In the mid 1970s, the format was repurposed as a children's educational toy called ポンキー and was used in the analog tape delay "Melos Echo Chamber".
An endless tape cartridge is a tape cartridge or cassette that contains magnetic audio tape that can be played in an endless loop, without the need to rewind to repeat.