Collaborate Disseminate
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when magnetic tape was the primary way of listening to and recording audio. Most of us are familiar with the cassette tape, …read more Continue reading A Non-Musical Use Case for 8-Track
What was the worst thing about the 70s? Some might say the oil crisis, inflation, or even disco. Others might tell you it was 8-track tapes, no matter what was …read more Continue reading 8-Tracks Are Back? They Are In My House
For plenty of media center PCs, home theaters, and people with a simple TV and a decent audio system, the standard speaker setup now is 5.1 surround sound. Left and …read more Continue reading Recreating The Quadrophonic Sound of the 70s
In the 1970s, 8-track audio players were very popular, especially in cars. For a couple of bucks, you could have the latest album, and you didn’t have to flip the …read more Continue reading Retro Gadgets: Tired of the Beatles on 8 Track? Try the Police
For reasons still unclear, [Techmoan] has procured an RCA 8-track changer that holds five tape cartridges in a custom carrier. It somewhat works, but had a bit of mechanical issues …read more Continue reading 50-Year-Old 8-Track Changer Repair and Hack
When it comes to classic cars, the entertainment options can be limited. You’re often stuck with an old cassette deck and AM/FM radio, or you can swap it out for …read more Continue reading Bluetooth 8-Track Adapters Are A Thing
On the outside chance that we ever encounter a space probe from an alien civilization, the degree to which the world will change cannot be overestimated. Not only will it prove that we’re not alone, or more likely weren’t, depending on how long said probe has been traveling through space, but we’ll have a bonanza of super-cool new technology to analyze. Just think of the fancy alloys, the advanced biomimetic thingamajigs, the poly-godknowswhat composites. We’ll take a huge leap forward by mimicking the alien technology; the mind boggles.
Sadly, we won’t be returning the favor. If aliens ever snag one …read more
Continue reading Interstellar 8-Track: The Not-So-Low-Tech Data Recorders of Voyager
Following time backward, for portable music we’ve had iPods, CDs, and cassette tapes which we played using small Walkmans around the size of a cigarette box. And for a brief time before that, in the 1960s and 1970s, we had 8-track tapes. These were magnetic tapes housed in cases around the size of a large slice of bread. Car dashboards housed players, and they also came in a carry-around format like the one [Todd Harrison] recently bought at a Hamfest for $5 and made more portable by machining clips for a strap and adding a headphone jack.
But before hacking …read more
If you are a connoisseur of analogue audio, it’s probable you might have a turntable and a stack of records at home somewhere. If you are of a certain age you may even have a cassette deck, though you’re more likely to have abandoned that format some time in the 1990s. If you are old enough to have been around in the 1960s or 1970s though, you may have owned another analogue audio format. One of several that you might have found in a well-equipped home of that period was the 8-track stereo cartridge, a self-contained tape cassette format that …read more
Continue reading Retro Teardown: Inside An 8-Track Stereo Player