Members rasputin1963 Posted April 15, 2014 Members Share Posted April 15, 2014 Watching old American TV commercials on YouTube, this time from the year 1966. One commercial is for the 1966 Ford MUSTANG. Optional for this model is a car tape player (shown in these 3 photos). This couldn't be an 8-track cartridge player... I seem to recall 8-tracks were fatter and somewhat smaller, no? So what IS this tape player? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eflatminor Posted April 15, 2014 Members Share Posted April 15, 2014 That looks like a 2 track tape and player. Not all that popular, but they made them back then. Slimmer than an 8 track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 15, 2014 Members Share Posted April 15, 2014 That's probably EMI's "stereosonic" tape player that came out in the late 50s. A 2-track tape that didn't catch on as Muntz' 4-track tape that came out a few years later caught on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 15, 2014 Members Share Posted April 15, 2014 Now that I look at it again, I think that's just a standard 8-track. It just looks thinner from the front because of the way the cartridge is cut. Here's a pic of it from the side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted April 16, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 16, 2014 The innards of an 8-track cartridge. Without even asking, I know that each of you had 8-track players that, on more than one occasion, "ate" your favorite tape. Did any of you successfully re-thread an 8-track after it had all been raveled to ribbons? I tried once--- The Moody Blues' IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD. This would've been about 1972. When finished, I popped it in: everything was played backwards. I'd threaded it bass-ackwards somehow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 16, 2014 Members Share Posted April 16, 2014 I rethreaded many 8 track tapes. I used to record my own and would splice and edit them to length as well. And put the tape in new cartridges if parts of the original ones broke or failed. I had quite a large collection in the 70s when I was in high school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eflatminor Posted April 16, 2014 Members Share Posted April 16, 2014 Why were so many 8 tracks pink? I dunno... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 16, 2014 Members Share Posted April 16, 2014 IIRC, pink was the color one of the record clubs (RCA or Columbia) used for their 8-tracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted April 17, 2014 Members Share Posted April 17, 2014 The innards of an 8-track cartridge. Without even asking, I know that each of you had 8-track players that, on more than one occasion, "ate" your favorite tape. Did any of you successfully re-thread an 8-track after it had all been raveled to ribbons? I tried once--- The Moody Blues' IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD. This would've been about 1972. When finished, I popped it in: everything was played backwards. I'd threaded it bass-ackwards somehow. Wow......bet that woulda been a trip after a left handed cigarette or two... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 17, 2014 Members Share Posted April 17, 2014 When finished, I popped it in: everything was played backwards. I'd threaded it bass-ackwards somehow. You probably took the entire reel of tape out and put it in upside down which would have had everything backwards and on the wrong tracks. Would be easy enough to do. One of the (many) problems with 8-track cartridges was that the whole thing needed to stay lubricated so the tape could easily unwind from the center of the single reel. They'd dry out and the tape would jam. You'd repair them but the repair wouldn't usually last long because no extra lube was added to the tape. What an odd invention when you think about it---having a single reel that unwound and wound itself at the same time and having the tape head in the player move up and down in order to play 4 different tracks! Obviously the cassette made so much more sense. And was based much more on the open-reel design. One would think a larger-sized cassette would have been the more logical choice rather than the clunky cartridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted April 17, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 17, 2014 The way the tape spools out from that tight, pinched, inner place at left... just seems like bad method/design to me... just asking for wear, wow and tangle, I'd think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 17, 2014 Members Share Posted April 17, 2014 Yes, a bad design. Based on the carts that radio stations used, but those were much shorter in length so they didn't jam as much. The problem with the reels is they'd slowly tighten over time. I remember opening them up and back winding the tape to try and get the reel to loosen up. The longer the tape, the tighter the wind would get. The double-length tapes that would hold 80-90 min of music didn't last long at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted April 17, 2014 Author Members Share Posted April 17, 2014 Am I remembering correctly that when the 8-track's popularity was waning in the late-70's, and the cassette was poised to replace it... that cassettes didn't, at that time, play in stereo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 17, 2014 Members Share Posted April 17, 2014 I don't remember when cassettes were first in stereo---they were first made for mono portable dictation-type recorders---but they were always in stereo once they started putting pre-recorded music on them as far as I can remember. Certainly they were in stereo when they started to replace 8-tracks by the late 70s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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