Posted by Derek Janssen on 12/10/05 05:15

Justin wrote:

>>But thats not quite true, stores still sell cassettes, both prerecorded
>>(rare but out there) and blanks. CD sure pacified cassette but it didn't
>>totally kill it. Now 8-track would be dead, can't buy prerecorded or blanks
>>outside a garage sale, no ones makes them to my knowledge. Cassette is
>>still made/sold by several manufactures including Memorex.

And are still used for home recording, personal notes, answering
machines, etc.
Now, compare to:

> 8 track didn't make the inroads tape did.

8-track had the two classic fatal symptoms:

A) It was pre-recorded media only (oh, sure, you could probably *get* a
recorder, if you wanted to buy the hardware that nobody else was
buying), and
B) It was technically a mess. (Always used to have that bleed-through
on the cheap players, with two tracks playing at once...)

....It had exactly ONE application-use for the consumer, and didn't
impress us at that. That's how neat-o technologies die.

Derek Janssen
djanss@charter.net

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