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Hi, Corey, The more I hear, the more I want to keep this to my narrow original concept: Formats for CONSUMER DELIVERY (mostly of MUSIC though I accept input regarding Old Time Radio, Talking Books, and a global perspective and I've acceded to pressure to keep the cassette out of the dead zone). I don't think there was any significant attempt to sell pre-recorded, commercial (mostly music) recordings in any of the following formats: --Recording wires --Dictabelts --IBM Executary magnetic belts --Rim-drive reel machines --Rim-drive cassette machines --Microcassettes --Minicassettes (a subspecies of rim-drive cassettes) I am NOT planning on incorporating any of the above. Although their time lines can be of interest in dating historic artifacts, it's beyond the scope of the present project. It was pointed out to me that the death of manufacturing of a product/system by no means is an accurate method for date-ranging of a recording as a frugal field recordist might have stockpiled the fading format and used it far beyond the official termination date. For example, I have a few NOS DCC tapes which I guess I could still use for a field recording (if I were deranged and didn't want to use my file-based digital recorders). There are four formats that I'm on the fence about: --RCA Sound Tape cartridges --Playtape (thanks, Shai) --Revere/CBS tape cartridges --Elcaset What I need to understand is the depth (if any) of offerings in pre-recorded tapes for these formats. I know that at least RCA and CBS issued what amounts to not much more than "sample" recordings in these formats. I have a bunch of the Revere/CBS cartridges that a client gave me after I rescued some family stuff off a few, but that doesn't really count because his Dad had been involved in the marketing of the format. I rescued a Sound Tape pre-recorded tape for a friend about eight years ago. It was a Disney or some other children's story and it had never been reissued in any other format that the friend could find even mention of--at least not with the same cast. But how broad was the Sound Tape commercial release? I agree with Shai, I do not think there was any significant body of Elcaset commercial releases. I don't know about Playtape. I keep forgetting about it as a format. Apparently many others did, too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayTape but before you say there's a CBS connection, note that the entrepreneur Frank Stanton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stanton_entrepreneur was not the same Frank Stanton who was President of CBS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Stanton Maybe I need to put Playtape on the list as here is a catalog of 480 tapes in the format http://bajasdogs.com/bajas_playtape_catalog.htm Cheers, Richard At 01:24 PM 2009-12-31, you wrote: >Would the Micro-cassette be worth mentioning perhaps as a >sub-species? The format is still in production. > >What about the short lived Elcaset? > >http://home.claranet.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/elcaset/index.html > > >Holiday cheers! > >Corey >Corey Bailey Audio Engineering Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask] Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.