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posted by cmn32480 on Monday November 13 2017, @06:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-old-is-still-old-but-they-are-making-more dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

National Audio Co. is the only company in the U.S. that produces cassette tape. Now, as cassette tapes enjoy a resurgence in popularity, National Audio has less than a year's supply left of the stuff, The Wall Street Journal reports.

For the last 15 years, National Audio's co-owner and president Steve Stepp has been clinging to his company's dwindling supply of music-quality magnetic tape. In 2014, National Audio's South Korean supplier stopped making the material, so Stepp bought out their remaining stock before they shuttered — and has been left with a shrinking stockpile ever since.

Although the demand for tape has increased in recent years, the quality and supply has not; National Audio has long relied on outdated gear that Stepp jokes is "the finest equipment the 1960s has to offer." That's why the company — which makes cassettes for everyone from indie bands to Metallica — is planning to build the U.S.'s first high-grade tape manufacturing line in decades.

Crap! Where am I going to store my TRS-80 programs now?

Source: https://theweek.com/speedreads/735269/america-running-cassette-tape


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  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday November 13 2017, @07:48PM (8 children)

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @07:48PM (#596406)

    Serious question: were there 8" flippy disks, or did that only happen with the 5 1/4" variety?

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  • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday November 13 2017, @08:15PM (2 children)

    by inertnet (4071) on Monday November 13 2017, @08:15PM (#596425) Journal

    I doubt that, because 8" existed practically only in the professional realm. The personal computer market only took off after 5 1/4" disks were already on the market, as far as I can remember. Those drives were already extremely expensive so nobody would buy a more expensive 8" drive just for a hobby.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Monday November 13 2017, @10:37PM

      by RS3 (6367) on Monday November 13 2017, @10:37PM (#596527)

      I generally concur, but add: I remember these but I don't know how many were sold, especially to home users: http://www.cedmagic.com/history/radio-shack-trs80-model2.html [cedmagic.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @01:27AM (#596600)

      There was an 8-inch floppy drive for the MITS Altair 8800, which was a home computer.

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday November 13 2017, @09:25PM (3 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:25PM (#596470) Journal

    Yes there were 8 inch floppies and pc-accessory drives for them.
    These were used for data-entry (key-"punch" replacement) and, for a while, you could by 8 inch drives packaged as externals for PCs.

    Some are still available on Ebay.
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/Shugart-8-SD-Floppy-Drive-model-901-motor-tested-44-pin-connector-input-115VAC-/200944527631 [ebay.com]
    https://www.ebay.com/p/NEC-Model-Fd1165-fq-Floppy-Drive-8-Disk-Vintage/1587067061?iid=122153925053 [ebay.com]

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    • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday November 13 2017, @09:31PM (1 child)

      by inertnet (4071) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:31PM (#596476) Journal

      Yes, but the question was if they were used as flippy disks (cut a hole and use the flip side).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @08:47AM (#596715)

        From the Wikipedia picture, the 8 inch floppies didn't have the hole in the first place, so that wouldn't be necessary.

        It does however have the index hole, so you wouldn't be able to flip it in any drive that uses the index hole. Note that this wouldn't be possible with a 5 1/4" disk either, but some home computers (e.g. Commodore) used "soft sector" formatting, which didn't use the index hole.

        (The index hole is the little round hole near the center, where as the hole you talk about cutting is the write protect hole, which is the square notch on the side.

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday November 13 2017, @10:12PM

      by mhajicek (51) on Monday November 13 2017, @10:12PM (#596511)

      I have a stack of 8" floppies on a shelf somewhere.

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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 13 2017, @09:31PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @09:31PM (#596475) Journal

    Yes, they did. I used them for about 1 year while in Uni.

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