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the demand for tape has increased in recent years, the quality and supply has not; National Audio has long relied on outdated gear that Stepp jokes is "the finest equipment the 1960s has to offer."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
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday November 13 2017, @09:06PM (3 children)
I bought it once on LP, 3 times on tape (car radio liked the taste of tapes, yum yum), and finally on CD. Yeah, I'm a fan. :)
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 13 2017, @10:09PM (1 child)
Congratulations!!
You are now entitled to pirate that album as many times as you like.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday November 14 2017, @05:39PM
No need, I already ripped the CD.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @10:05AM
So after your car radio ate the tape, or at least after it ate the tape for the second time, it didn't occur to you that you might just make a copy of it onto blank tape and use that in your car?