The sound of the golden years of tape storage

In China in the late 1970s, people's material and cultural life demand expanded rapidly. However, due to the limitation of productivity level, the cultural entertainment methods available at the time were not rich. The people could only read simple books, newspapers and radios. Looking for spiritual fun in the media, TV and movies are still far away from the lives of ordinary people. The complete concept of stars has not been formed among ordinary people, but only a few people.

With the advent of cassette tapes, the voices of a large number of celebrity artists began to enter the entertainment life of ordinary people through this new medium. For a time, tape became the window of the mainland and Hong Kong and Taiwan, and for the first time let the mainland people feel To the charm of popular culture, Leslie Cheung, Little Tigers, Teresa Teng, and Anita Mui, the artists on the other side of the Xiangjiang River and their respective representative works, are deeply remembered by the mainland audience of different ages and sung in the streets.

Tapes can be divided into four types according to their use: tapes, video tapes, computer tapes and instrument tapes. All of us mentioned here are tapes. Tapes are also of different types and titles in different countries and regions. In Taiwan, The reel-to-reel disc is called a disc cassette, the compact audio cassette is called a cassette tape, and the 8-track film is called a cassette tape. The tapes mentioned in the Mainland generally refer to compact audio cassettes, and 8 tracks. The film cassette tape appeared in the later car record player.

The tape does not have the ability to store sound. The tape is coated with a layer of magnetic powder similar to magnetic particles. The recording head and the playback head need to cooperate to realize the complete sound recording and playback process. The wavelength and frequency of the sound are endless. Similarly, the microphone can convert sounds with different currents and frequencies into audio currents. With the movement of the magnetic head on the magnetic tape, the magnetic particles are magnetized and different magnetic fields and directional tracks are formed, so that the audio current is stored on the magnetic tape according to these tracks. The playback head used in playback is roughly reversed from the recording head, and generates an induced current according to the previously fixed trajectory. After amplification, the audio current is converted into a sound signal through the speaker.

Tapes or tapes were originally created for entertainment purposes. Due to their low cost and simple structure and principle, tapes have even become a life-saving straw for some small and medium-sized record companies, but with the gradual promotion of this new product, its potential functions. It is also gradually being excavated, for example for learning purposes.

In the education market, the early foreign language learning career of Chinese students can be said to have a close relationship with tape. Almost every student who comes into contact with foreign languages ​​has directly or indirectly touched tape products. At the beginning, people will use hearing tapes on the tape recorder. Later, the repeater was also called the new host of listening tape. Until today, in many places in the middle school broadcasting system, the tape is still an important medium for audio storage and playback. Many people may use the common experience, the parents used to learn English. The need to provide students with repeaters, but the slow repeater is used by many people as a tool for listening to music. Of course, in addition to learning English, in the era of tape popular, many parents use it as a child intelligence development and even It is a tool for prenatal education, such as the purchase of tapes related to traditional Chinese culture for children, so that it can develop the imagination of school-age children, and it has the role of eye protection compared to TV, and these experiences may be for parents and children of the current era. Will not be owned, replaced by more TV, mobile phones and tablets.

In addition, in the process of using the tape, there is a word that many people will not be familiar with - rewinding, especially in the middle and late stages of development of the recorder, repeater and Walkman, and gradually added the rewind function. But before that, because there is no rewind function, many people like to use a pencil to insert a tape to rotate the tape, perform manual rewinding, and repeat a song, while some naughty children may pick the tape directly from the box. It’s messed up.

For today's new generation of young people, it is probably unclear for them to bring tapes, because the new digital multimedia entertainment solutions have become the mainstream of the moment. And it is for this reason that tapes are in Chinese and even After nearly half a century of long-distance running in the world entertainment market, under the dual role of technology and productivity, it finally ended its mission and gave way to new product forms.

The terminator of the tape can be understood as a CD, because the audio storage capacity, portability and cost of the CD are absolutely superior compared to the tape, and the tape has a problem - it is not conducive to placement, 10 tapes can make A small drawer is full, but the CD is very different. In addition, the security of the tape has always been a topic of concern. Under normal circumstances, ordinary tape can be played on any device without any data security and confidentiality. The concept, secondly, the material of the tape is extremely flammable. If it is not properly stored, it is easy to cause a fire. These problems are basically not present in the later multimedia products, or are solved very well. In fact, the tape is replaced by CD. Then, the CD was terminated by MP3. This series of processes is an inevitable trend of productivity and technological change, and the digital wave plays a crucial role in this.

In the past, people needed to carry a portable tape and insert a thick tape to play music. Now, with the network, people can use a simple application to play music in the cloud, although the two are very different. Experience, but it is also a brand of two different eras.