The Fidelipac, commonly known as an NAB cartridge or simply cart, is a magnetic tape sound recording format, used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as radio commercials, jingles, station identifications, and music. Fidelipac is the official name of this industry standard audio tape cartridge. It was developed in 1954[citation needed] by inventor George Eash[1][2] (although the invention of the Fidelipac cartridge has also been credited to Vern Nolte of the Automatic Tape Company[3][4]), and commercially introduced in 1959 by Collins Radio at the 1959 NAB Convention. The cartridge was widely used at radio stations until the late 1990s, when such formats as MiniDisc and computerized broadcast automation made the Fidelipac cartridge obsolete.
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History [link]
The Fidelipac cartridge was the first audio tape cartridge available commercially, based on the endless-loop tape cartridge design developed by Bernard Cousino in 1952, while Eash shared space in Cousino's electronics shop in the early 1950s.
Tape format [link]
Fidelipac was originally a 1⁄4-inch-wide (6.4 mm) analog recording tape, two-track format. One of the tracks was used for monaural program audio, and the other being used for a cue track to control the player, where either a primary cue tone was recorded to automatically stop the cart, a secondary tone was recorded to automatically re-cue the cart to the beginning of the cart's program material (in some models, two secondary tones, one after the program material, and one before it, were recorded to have the cart machine automatically fast-forward through any leftover blank tape at the end of a cart's program), or a tertiary tone, which was used by some players to trigger another cart player or another form of external equipment. Later versions used three tracks, two for stereo audio, and the third for the cue track.
The standard tape speed for Fidelipac carts used in the radio broadcasting industry was 7.5 ips, although some cart players and recorders could be set to record at other speeds, such as 3.75 or 15 ips.[5]
Cartridge format [link]
Unlike the later consumer-marketed 8-track cartridge developed later in 1964 by Bill Lear which had the pinch roller integrated in the cartridge, the Fidelipac cartridge had a hole in the right-hand bottom front corner of the cartridge, where the pinch roller, built-in to the player instead, would swing up into place to support the tape up against the capstan. While Collins and Gates/Harris machines had the pinch roller automatically swing up into place when the playback button was pressed, with Fidelipac and ATC (Automatic Tape Cartridge) machines, the operator had to physically push or pull a lever to get the pinch roller in place before playback could begin.
There were three sizes of Fidelipac carts available — the 4-inch-wide A size (Fidelipac Model 300, 350 and MasterCart), which was a standard 8-track size cart with maximum 10 1⁄2 minute playing time at 7.5 ips; the 6-inch-wide B size (Fidelipac Model 600), a larger cartridge designed for holding longer programs; and the even larger 8-inch-wide C size (Fidelipac Model 1200), often used for background music applications.
The A size Fidelipac cartridge was later adapted by Earl "Madman" Muntz in 1962 for his Stereo-Pak cartridge system, which differed in two ways — the number of tracks used (four in this case, with two played back at a time to provide a total of two programs of stereo audio), and the tape speed (3.75 ips as opposed to Fidelipac's standard 7.5 ips). Unlike the Fidelipac players which used a stationary head, the Stereo-Pak system used a moving head to go between the two programs (much like the 8-track format, which also used a moving head to access its four stereo programs).
Fidelipac today [link]
As of 2011, the American company CartGuys is the only remaining manufacturer of Fidelipac tapes and recorders.[6][7]
See also [link]
References [link]
- ^ "SCA Debuts Tape Cartridge Players". The Billboard 71 (7): p. 24. February 16, 1959. ISSN 0006-2510. https://books.google.com/books?id=SSEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA24."The almost-square plastic-cased Fidelipac magazines, which come in three different sizes, are produced by the Fidelipac division of SAC [Stereophonic Automatic Corporation], located in Toledo, under the direction of George Eash, inventor of Fidelipac."
- ^ James Wong. "A History". The Audio Circuit. https://www.audiocircuit.com/index.php?cc=961&general=his.
- ^ The History of Recording Technology
- ^ "New Fidelipac Tape Magazine Used in Radio". The Billboard 71 (37): p. 41. September 14, 1959. ISSN 0006-2510. https://books.google.com/books?id=1woEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA41. "Conley Electronics Corporation, Skokie, Ill., granted a non-exclusive franchise for its Fidelipac continuous tape magazine to Collins Radio Company, Cedar Rapids, Ia. The Collins broadcasting division has incorporated the Fidelipac cartridge into its Automatic Tape Control record and playback units."
- ^ Audio Engineer's Reference Book By Michael Talbot-Smith @ Googlebooks
- ^ www.cartguys.com
- ^ www.rwonline.com
External links [link]
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https://wn.com/Fidelipac
4-track
4-track or 4-track tape may refer to:
IBM 3480 Family
The 3480 tape format is a magnetic tape data storage format developed by IBM. The tape is one half inch wide and is packaged in a 4"x5"x1" cartridge. The cartridge contains a single reel; the takeup reel is inside the tape drive.
Because of their speed, reliability, durability and low media cost, these tapes and tape drives are still in high demand. A hallmark of the genre is transferability. Tapes recorded with one tape drive are generally readable on another drive, even if the tape drives were built by different manufacturers.
Tape drives conforming with the IBM 3480 product family specification were manufactured by a variety of vendors from 1984 to 2004. Core manufacturers included IBM, Fujitsu, M4 Data, Overland Data, StorageTek and Victor Data Systems (VDS). Various models of these tape drives were also marketed under other brands, including DEC, MP Tapes, Philips, Plasmon, Qualstar, Tandem, and Xcerta.
IBM designated all versions of 3480 and 3490E tape drives as members of the 3480 Product Family.
Swan
Swans are birds of the family Anatidae within the genus Cygnus. The swans' close relatives include the geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae. There are six or seven species of swan in the genus Cygnus; in addition there is another species known as the coscoroba swan, although this species is no longer considered one of the true swans. Swans usually mate for life, though "divorce" does sometimes occur, particularly following nesting failure, and if a mate dies, the remaining swan will take up with another. The number of eggs in each clutch ranges from three to eight.
Etymology and terminology
The English word 'swan', akin to the German Schwan, Dutch zwaan and Swedish svan, is derived from Indo-European root *swen (to sound, to sing). Young swans are known as swanlings or as cygnets, from Greek κύκνος, kýknos and from the Latin word cygnus ("swan") and the Old French suffix -et ("little"). An adult male is a cob, from Middle English cobbe (leader of a group); an adult female is a pen.
Swan (nuclear primary)
Swan was a U.S. test nuclear explosive, which was developed into the XW-45 warhead.
It was tested standalone on June 22, 1956 in shot Redwing Inca. It was tested again as the primary of a thermonuclear device on July 2, 1956 in shot Redwing Mohawk. Both tests were successful. It subsequently served as the primary in numerous thermonuclear devices during the 1950s.
Most subsequent U.S. primaries are Swan-derived, including the Robin, the Tsetse, the Python, and the much later (asymmetrical) ovoid (prolate) primaries.
Design features
The Swan device is the first design to incorporate a two-point hollow-pit air lens implosion assembly together with fusion boosting.
The Swan device had a yield of 15 kilotons, weighed 105 lb (47.6 kg), and had a (symmetrical) ovoid (non-prolate) shape with a diameter of 11.6 inches (29.5 cm) and a length of 22.8 inches (58 cm), a length to diameter ratio of 1.97.
The above schematic illustrates what were probably its essential features.
One-point safety
Swan (surname)
Swan is an American, Australian, Brazilian, Canadian, English, Finnish, and Irish surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Data (word)
The word data has generated considerable controversy on if it is a singular, uncountable noun, or should be treated as the plural of the now-rarely-used datum.
Usage in English
In one sense, data is the plural form of datum. Datum actually can also be a count noun with the plural datums (see usage in datum article) that can be used with cardinal numbers (e.g. "80 datums"); data (originally a Latin plural) is not used like a normal count noun with cardinal numbers and can be plural with such plural determiners as these and many or as a singular abstract mass noun with a verb in the singular form. Even when a very small quantity of data is referenced (one number, for example) the phrase piece of data is often used, as opposed to datum. The debate over appropriate usage continues, but "data" as a singular form is far more common.
In English, the word datum is still used in the general sense of "an item given". In cartography, geography, nuclear magnetic resonance and technical drawing it is often used to refer to a single specific reference datum from which distances to all other data are measured. Any measurement or result is a datum, though data point is now far more common.
