When were 8 track tapes invented?

Question

When were 8 track tapes invented?

Answer 1

1940's

Answer 2

If you mean Stereo 8 track cartridge tapes, they were launched in 1964. (The audio cassette, by comparison, first appeared in 1963.)

They were sold until the 1980s in the USA, but they died out in other countries long before that.

Answer 3

The 8-track tape has roots that extend into the

motion picture industry. Endless loop motion pictures were made from the 1920s on for advertising or other special purposes. With the appearance of inexpensive reel-to-reel tape recorders in the late 1940s, several inventors adapted the endless loop motion picture idea for use with the new German-style plastic recording tapes. Of these inventors, only one, William Powell Lear, gets much attention.

In 1946 Lear Purchased a California company that had tried

to market a steel-tape loop recorder based on the old Western Electric/AT&T Technology [from their 1933 "Hear Your Own Voice" endless loop recorders].

Bill Lear appeared on the scene, newly world famous for his

Lear Jet business plane, and announced in 1965 that he had developed a cartridge with eight tracks that promised to lower the price of recorded tapes without any sacrifice in music quality. Lear's enthusiasm for loops had not faded after the failure of his endless wire cartridge of the late 1940s. In 1963, he became a distributor for Muntz Stereo Pak, mainly in order to install 4-track units aboard his Lear Jets. Dissatisfied with the Muntz technology, he contacted one of the leading suppliers of original equipment tape heads, the Nortronics Company of Michigan. He specified a head with much thinner "pole-pieces" and a new spacing that would allow two tracks (or one stereo program) to be picked off a quarter-inch tape that held a total of 8-tracks. Although a departure from the Muntz player, the technology of the closely-stacked multi-track head was by the early 1960s well established in fields like data recording. Lear in 1963 developed a new version of the Fidelipac cartridge with somewhat fewer parts and an integral pressure roller. During 1964, Lear's aircraft company constructed 100 players for distribution to executives at the auto companies and RCA.

Answer 4

after reel to reel and before cassettes.