when did the first cassette tape come out
1962
title: Cassette tape text: blank (recordable) Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover, Germany. Prerecorded music cassettes (also known as "Music-Cassettes", and later just Musicassettes; M.C. for short) were launched in Europe in late 1965. The Mercury Record Company, a US affiliate of Philips, introduced M.C. to the US in July 1966. The initial offering consisted of 49 titles. However, the system had been designed initially for dictation and portable use, with the audio quality of early players not well suited for music. Some early models also had an unreliable mechanical design. In 1971, the Advent Corporation introduced their Model 201 tape deck that title: Cassette tape text: a large cassette (5 × 7 in, or 13 × 18 cm), and offered few pre-recorded tapes. Despite the multiple versions, it failed. Consumer use of magnetic tape machines only took off in the early 1960s, after playback machines reached a comfortable, user-friendly design. This was achieved primarily by the introduction of transistors which replaced the bulky, fragile, and costly vacuum tubes of earlier designs. Reel-to-reel tape then became more suitable to household use, but still remained an esoteric product. In 1962, Philips invented the Compact Cassette medium for audio storage, introducing it in Europe on 30 August 1963 at title: Cassette tape text: 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone and Japan soon became the major source of recorders. By 1968, 85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million players. By the end of the 1960s, the cassette business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. In the early years sound quality was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape and kept improving. The Compact Cassette went on to become a popular (and re-recordable) alternative to the 12-inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s. The mass production of title: Cassette tape text: end. In 1935, decades before the introduction of the Compact Cassette, AEG released the first reel-to-reel tape recorder (in German: "Tonbandgerät"), with the commercial name "Magnetophon". It was based on the invention of the magnetic tape (1928) by Fritz Pfleumer, which used similar technology but with open reels (for which the tape was manufactured by BASF). These instruments were very expensive and relatively difficult to use and were therefore used mostly by professionals in radio stations and recording studios. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, reel-to-reel RCA tape cartridge. However, it was title: Cassette tape text: produced for a decade (1972–82), it is very rare, because of several technical flaws. The tape had to be so thin that it was nearly transparent and therefore had fewer particles to magnetize, resulting in a poor sound quality and even worse durability. It required a strong motor to be driven, and had high wow-and-flutter. Lastly, these tapes took a relatively long time to rewind. Other lengths are (or were) also available from some vendors, including C10 and C15 (useful for saving data from early home computers and in telephone answering machines), C30, C40, C50, C54, C64, C70, C74, C80,