8 track tapes

[thewiz]

I remember the 8 track tapes....had Bachman Turner Overdrive, Queen and some others. I think I sold them with my leisure suits on a yard sale years ago, however!

They would probably be ideal for the Smithsonian today!

 

[G-Lexington]

>>>I'm old enough to remember having an 8-track player in the car. Don't remember what we had on tape though.

My parents had an 8-track player in the car until I turned 5 or 6. The three tapes I recall were Vivaldi, Dionne Warwick, and some sort of "muzak versions of Simon & Garfunkel hits" collection. I grew up knowing all the music from Simon & Garfunkel, but none of the lyrics.

>>>I have a bunch of cassette tapes now that are pretty close to as obsolete as 8-tracks. I still have an old cassette player sitting in the corner that I could hook up if I wanted to, but I already all those tunes downloaded from iTunes.

I used to make mixtapes for a lot of my friends back in the day. One of them recently unearthed a cache of them, and asked if I wanted them back. I said sure, and asked if he wanted me to make CD versions of them. He said he'd love that, so that's a project I'm working on. Most of the music I have on CD, some I'm getting from iTunes, but some is too damn obscure (such as my friends' band playing 'Owner of a Lonely Heart" at a school party), so I've attached my old cassette Walkman to my computer, and am dumping these "lost" tracks into iTunes. It's fun putting the whole project together.

Lex

 

[Joshua_me]

I purposely saved two of my parents 8-tracks just because I thought they were so quintessentially "70's". And strangely, they've both been mentioned here already. Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "Frampton Comes Alive" (which I actually listen to on CD)

Good God Gurdy, what a dreadful format 8-tracks were. The tape hiss roared like Niagara Falls, you have to wait to hear the song you want to and that horrible track fading thing in the middle of a song so it could change tracks....

WTF were people thinking back then ? Cassettes were invented in the early 60's. How 8-tracks took off is beyond me.

 

[purina]

Did cassettes loop themselves or flip themselves over - don't want to be bothered with that when the van's a rockin'.

 

[Yooper]

Did cassettes loop themselves or flip themselves over - don't want to be bothered with that when the van's a rockin'.

I've got one of these that still works.

 

[purina]

I didn't know. I'm too old to remember.

 

[ronboy]

My uncle had an 8 track tape player that came with his 1971 Pontiac Grand Ville. That car was huge, and had as many "toys" as any Cadillac of the time. It was so cool to go on trips in that car because it was spacious, and we could play our 8 tracks.

I have a portable Panasonic 8 track player-radio (precursor to today's boom boxes) stashed away in a closet, with a box of old tapes. I brought them to school last year to demonstrate for my class. They thought the tapes were too big to be portable.

It's just a quaint reminder of where we have been, and where we are going with technology.

 

[chillyboi]

i remember each item shown here, my sister had a 8 track player. i used to play abba & blonde & bee gee's & sat nite fever, while she was out!!
lol

 

[hotdog1846]

We had a 1976 Honda Civic with an 8-track player. Then, my dad got a 8-track player to connect to his 1959 tube amp stereo (he called it a "hi-fi", and still has it) in about 1977, and I bought a stereo with tuner, 8-track, and record changer in 1978. With my own money, even, as a 12 year old.

All that ... and I had only two 8-track tapes ever: The Carpenters "Passages", and Eagles' "Hotel California". I still have the Eagles one, just for ol' times' sake, even though all 8-track players have been banished from my existence.

What an awful format. Not at all for anyone who cares about the sound quality! I suppose they were made for cars, since they'd be more durable than cassettes, and to think about a vinyl LP in a car ... well, we just won't go there...

 

[Joshua_me]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PMMGvmnCSE[/ame]


Woo Hoo !

I guess they had the amps built into them or something....

 

[BINOWGAYLATER]

My 1980 Chevy Citation came with an awesome 8 track player - the car was seriously defective - and i got rid of it only 3 years later - but there is a boxx of 8 tracks still "in the closet" !! maybe they should come out on e-bay? i could use the money.

 

[biguy732]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMKKhAs6PMc[/ame]

This is how you kick it old school! Gotta love those old GM radio's of the 70's.