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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the demand for tape has increased in recent years, the quality and supply has not; National Audio has long relied on outdated gear that Stepp jokes is "the finest equipment the 1960s has to offer."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 number11 on Monday November 13 2017, @09:24PM (2 children)

    by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 13 2017, @09:24PM (#596468)

    And how the hell do these fans play these cassettes anyway? I haven't even seen a cassette player in years, except maybe at the museum

    Geez, maybe I should charge admission to my living room. I don't use them often, but I've got both a dual cassette player/recorder and a turntable. And while tape does deteriorate (to prevent print-through you need to play it to the end without rewinding occasionally), vinyl will still be working long after bit rot has eaten your CDs. Just because you're too young to have experienced bit rot on your Justin Bieber CDs, the time will come.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday November 13 2017, @09:28PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday November 13 2017, @09:28PM (#596471)

    Bullshit. I have CDs that I bought new back in 1990 and they still work just fine. I've never seen a CD (the aluminum kind) die from bit-rot, though I've read reports of some having problems, probably from bad batches.

    CD-Rs, on the other hand, are another matter altogether. I have gold ones that still read fine, but I have dyed ones that are dead.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 14 2017, @06:11PM (#596889)

      This is a pattern common to almost all consumer goods.
      The first ones are usually very well built but very expensive (barring the very, very first ones which might be a little temperamental).
      At the midpoint of the product's life cycle, the quality has dropped a bit to still good enough to do the job, and price drops as well. For most purchasers, this is the golden age of the product: affordable, ubiquitous, and decent quality. Towards the end of the product's life, price is the sole criterion for purchasing one brand over another. Strong competition means price is quite low. Unfortunately, to still make a profit, quality is what has to give. At this point, the products from any manufacturer are junk, and quality simply cannot be found in that type of product.

      All long winded, but I say that to explain myself when I say that CD-Rs and 3.5 inch floppies were actually pretty reliable until the end of their product lifecycle.
      At that stage, they were unreliable trash. But so cheap! >:-(