Mondo Knows Facts
Eight track cartridges rolled the tape in one loop
The end of the tape simply joined the start, so it played for ever It was made for car use because the cartridge was bulky and hard to damage. Changing programmes meant stepping through four tracks with a clunk. Cassettes replaced it once their sound quality improved. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Dolby put hiss reduction in the homeThe system boosted quiet high frequencies on record and cut them on playbackWax cylinders lost the first format warEdison backed cylinders while rivals pushed discs that could be stampedFlat discs beat cylindersEmile Berliner's gramophone made records cheap to press and stackEarly records turned at about 78 revolutions a minuteThe figure was never exact, and it varied between companiesThe long playing record arrived in 1948Columbia's microgroove LP turned at 33 and a third and held about 22 minutes a sideThe cassette was meant for dictationPhilips introduced it in 1963 as a compact, cheap recording medium
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Tags: formats, tape, history
Eight track cartridges rolled the tape in one loop: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The end of the tape simply joined the start, so it played for ever. The figure is taken from Library of Congress, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.