The Good "Old" Eight Track

So I’m old fashioned and I live in the past. Well I do still have an eight track player and will keep it until I can show it on Antique Road Show. Some things are good ideas no matter how long ago they were produced. It is possible that the concept of the eight track player is still one of the better things that was ever invented. No not really, it was outdated almost before it was put into production.
You may think that because I love this outdated concept that I live in the past. Well my favorites do not influence what I enjoy today. I find that the flash drive and the SD card are the parts of today’s life that do make it possible to do things faster when you remember to use them. I still have found pleasure in backing up the P08 Thought Of The Day via a paper copy. It just feels good to see it in print. Maybe it is a dream state that someday it will actually be printed in book form. We all have our dreams about how the things that we are doing will come to some happy conclusion and that they will lead to better things in our lives.
It is possible that when they invented the eight track player the idea was so overwhelming that they actually thought the world would convert? The cassette player made it possible to carry information and more normally music to places where it had been impossible before. The physical size difference was the limit to the eight track player. Like so many other innovations it was not the quality that made it fade it was outside influences and its own limitations that doomed it.
Many people are not aware that the VHS system was the inferior of the two tape systems that came out almost at the same time. The slightly earlier Beta system was a superior record principal, but it lacked some of the features that were needed. It gave a better picture and sound. VHS just had the ability to record more on one tape and had more people behind the development and they were able to get key studios to release movies in that format. They just were not going to lose that battle and they did win. Beta did prove itself in the long run with many professional recording systems and broadcast use of this format as the basic media to record news and in house use as a standard to save programing.
Well I will save my eight track player and some day may actually plug it in and play one of those rare recording that I have in a box someplace. Or maybe I will sell them on e-bay to someone who thinks that they are a new way to store music?