H8-Track Stereo started by Sean Beard released over 800 albums for artists on 8-track internationally from 2013 to 2019, inspiring an underground revival of the format that has yet to be exceeded.
After completing a program, the head mechanically switches to another set of two tracks, creating a characteristic clicking noise.
His inspiration came from one of the first products that used the endless tape cartridge technology, which was the Audio Vendor from a year earlier, an invention of Bernard Cousino.
A 35mm filmstrip was reduced to 16mm and loaded into an endless loop film cartridge similar to a Fisher Price Movie Viewer which used silent truncated versions of 16mm cartoons.
Lear also eliminated some of the internal parts of the Eash cartridge, such as the tape-tensioning mechanism and an interlock that prevented tape slippage.
Commercial recordings were going back to a slightly smaller version of the same truncated program problems that plagued 2-track stereo tapes 20 years earlier.
By the late 1960s, the 8-track segment was the largest in the US consumer electronics market (Low UK & Europe sales as Compact Cassette was released 1962) and the popularity of 8-track systems for cars helped generate demand for home units.
With the availability of cartridge systems for the home, consumers started thinking of eight-tracks as a viable alternative to 33 rpm album style vinyl records, not only as a convenience for the car.
[18][19] Milton Bradley's OMNI Entertainment System was an electronic quiz machine game first released in 1980, similar to Jeopardy!
[20] In 1977, the Scottish company GR International released the Bandmaster Powerhouse, a drum machine that played back custom-made 8-track cartridges similar to a Mellotron or Chamberlin Music Master containing drum and percussion rhythm loops recorded with real instruments.
[22] Eight-track players became less common in homes and vehicles in the late 1970s, dwarfed by the compact cassette (which arrived in 1963).
[23] By 1980, the eight-track was already being phased out in favor of cassettes,[24] whose sales were rapidly increasing partly due to the success of the Walkman[25] and eventually caught up and dethroned LPs by 1983.
However, some titles were still available as eight-track tapes through Columbia House and RCA (BMG) Music Service record clubs until late 1988.
Until 1990, Radio Shack (Tandy Corporation) continued to sell blank eight-track cartridges and players for home recording use under its Realistic brand.