The Lear Jet 8-Track Tape

 

In the 1960s, William P. Lear developed the eight-track tape player with four stereo programs. Each program ran in parallel on eight tracks for the entire length of a single, continuous tape loop. When a solenoid coil detected the splice where the loop was closed, it sent a signal to the playback head. This shifted it over to the next pair of tracks.

They aren't taken very seriously these days, but 8-track tapes and decks changed car audio forever. The Stereo 8, which first appeared as an option on Fords, had minimal controls and was often mounted under the dashboard with ugly U-brackets, but aesthetics weren't the point. With an 8-track in your car, you were no longer at the mercy of local radio station playlists. That was a very big deal at a time when only the largest cities had stations that played what was then known as "album rock." And the sound! In those days 8-tracks blew the doors off anything coming from a radio station, despite their infamous fadeouts when the tracks switched.

Read the article: "Bill Lear Invents the 8-Track and Brings in Ford, Motorola, and RCA Victor" by David L. Morton, Jr., Ph.D.