Sandwiched between the reel-to-reel tape and the rise of the cassette as we used to know it, there was, for a brief moment in 1958, what RCA Victor called “A Revolutionary New Triumph in Tape.” Looking for all the world like a mix tape accidentally irradiated in an atomic blast, RCA’s invention “never really caught the fancy of the tape-buying public” as the New York Times delicately explained in 1964. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying—as this clip from an RCA promotional film shows.
