The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic-tape sound-recording technology that was popular in the United States from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the Compact Cassette, which predated 8-track, surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded music. The format is obsolete and was relatively unknown outside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, West Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Stereo 8 Cartridge was created in 1964 by a consortium led by Bill Lear, of Lear Jet Corporation, along with Ampex, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Motorola, and RCA Victor Records (RCA - Radio Corporation of America). It was a further development of the similar Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge, which had been introduced by Earl "Madman" Muntz (marketing and television-set dealer), which was adapted by Muntz from the Fidelipac cartridge, which had been developed by George Eash. A later quadraphonic (four-channel sound, as opposed to earlier, more widely used stereo/two-channel sound) version of the format was announced by RCA in April 1970 and called first Quad-8 and later Q8.
The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic-tape sound-recording technology that was popular in the United States from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the Compact Cassette, which predated 8-track, surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded music. The format is obsolete and was relatively unknown outside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, West Germany, Italy, and Japan.