8-Track Heaven

I have a pretty darned nice stereo system in my car. It's a multimedia player that handles all sorts of formats, including standard and mp3 cd's as well as having a USB port so I can copy eight hours of music onto a 512 MB flash drive straight from my computer. It's cool stuff!

However, if you travel back in time to the early 1970's, there was one format. Not everyone had players in their cars for it, and the ones that did loved it. I'm speaking of the venerable eight-track tape.

I can remember my local department store having rows of bins full of eight-tracks, covered with plexiglass shields with holes in them big enough to reach in and grab the tapes, but too small to withdraw them. You had to holler at a salesman to come open them up when you were finally ready to make your purchase.

But how good they sounded through those funky little speakers that we had. And when they wore out after a hundred or so playings, we grew accustomed to having to purchase new ones.

Today's FamilyFirst site is entitled 8-Track Heaven. It's a great sentimental journey for us baby boomers, and you kids will enjoy reading about the various things we had to put up with.

Oftentimes songs would fade out halfway through as the track changed and fade back in. Now that was funky! But it's all we had if you wanted your music to go with you.

I learned lots of fun facts here. I never realized that there was a competition between eight-tracks and four-tracks. Shades of Betamax vs. VHS.

Spend some time here, you'll learn everything there is to know about the late, great eight-track tape!

http://www.8trackheaven.com

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