Welcome to Hell, here's your 8-Track

Over the course of my audio existence I’ve had Reel-to-Reel, Four Track Cartridge, Eight Track Cartridge, Cassette, CD, and Direct-to-Bits recording media. I’ve spent more than my share of time making recordings off the radio, and off of various borrowed LPs & Singles. I also made recordings of records I’d gotten sick of and wanted to sell for pocket cash. Anyway, of the bunch, in terms of SQ I gotta tell ya that Eight Track was the proverbial ugh-o-rama.

And oh yeah. over the years I have made many live recordings of me and my musician mates.

Dekay-

ah youth, simpler times, those were the days, no? ;)

     Saw/heard many, back in the day, but: never desired/owned one.

     Still believe it to be an ingenious use for the Mobius Strip.

Can’t think of another application*, outside of some obsolete typewriter ink carts, computer tapes and conveyor belts.      Can you?

              *Aside from the studies of Math/Physics Topology, that is.

Question:

If the Nakamichi brothers had designed and built an 8-track player/recorder with autoazimuth adjustment would we still be listening to 8-tracks today? What would they have named it?

A little trivia: A full 20 years after Pioneer announced that whey were no longer going to build an 8-track player, you could still order the 8-track option in a new Lincoln Continental.

Ok, here's what I remember about them. They played at 3and 3/4 IPS. Cassette's played at 1 and 7/8. The Radio Shack car cassette player I had was bad for wow. My friends 8-track was better sounding for about a year till I upgraded and got a Pioneer cassette deck. Then the cassette was far superior. After I got a home   cassette recorder my friend switched and didn't look back. I still remember my first listen to Dark Side on 8-track in friends old beat up Corolla. Thanks for the great memories! By the way, I miss my 240Z as well.