Over the years, mankind has sought many ways to preserve sounds and images from the ravages of time. These scientific miracles have been realized in many formats.

    One of those formats is magnetic tape.

    Here is a sampling of the many phyiscal formats and packages for magnetic audio tape over the years.

   
     (Late 1940's- Present) The simplest thing to do with magentic tape was to wind it around a reel like movie film. And that's just what they did. More on this format at a later date.


    
     (Mid-1950's - Mid-1960's). This was an attempt by the engineers at RCA to develop an easy-to-use version of reel tapes. Those engineers mounted little reels of tape in a cartridge shell and built recorders to accept the cartridge tapes. All the important elements of the standard Philip's audio cassette were embodied in this format, except for one: small size.

     We have nearly a hundred examples of this format available. More scans of the tapes themselves, along with catalogs and other materials will be posted in the near future. 


    
     (1975 - 1977) Another attempt to make reel tapes easy-to-use, this one by the engineers in Japan. The name, Elcaset, comes from Large, or L ("ell"), Cassette. It was a market flop.


    
    (Early 1960's - Late 1970's). The four-track tape, as popularized by Earl "Madman" Muntz, was an attempt to get music into cars. The tape itself was a continuous loop packaged inside of a plastic case. Similar designs had been used in the radio industry since the mid-1950's. More to follow...


    
    (1966 - 1987). This link leads to my 8-Track trading site. More technical info here in the future.