Invented in the 1960s and peaking in sales in the late 1980s, the compact cassette is a format that's been pushed out of fashion by new audio technologies.
Audio cassettes, also called cassette tapes, are a format for recording and playing audio. They consist of a small plastic device containing a reel-to-reel tape of magnetic information.
History
In 1958 the RCA Victor company developed the first audio cassette tape measuring 5 inches by 7 inches. In 1962 Phillips released the compact cassette, a smaller format than the RCA Victor version, which rose to popularity in the 1970s and 80s.
High Fidelity
In 1971 the Advent Corp. developed a tape deck with noise reduction technology combined with cassettes made with chromium dioxide tape. This drastically improved sound quality and made the cassette tape a more serious choice for music listening not just dictation.
Write Protection
All audio cassette players have tiny tabs on the top corners called write protectors, which can be broken off to prevent re-recording of the tape's data.
Features
Audio cassettes utilized reel-to-reel technology to be smaller and more portable than vinyl, or traditional adjacent reel tape players. This led to the development of portable music players and recorders, such as the Walkman.
Decline
After reaching a peak of sales in the late 1980s, audio cassettes became a less and less popular format for both music distribution and dictation. This was mostly because of the increasing popularity of compact discs.
Tags: Audio cassettes, cassette tape, compact cassette, late 1980s, sales late, sales late 1980s
