Fidelipac is the official name of the industry standard audio tape cartridge used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as commercials, jingles, station IDs, and music. It was developed in 1959 by the company of the same name, and commercially introduced in that same year by Collins Radio at the 1959 NAB Convention. Standardization or standardisation (sometimes abbreviated s13n), in the context related to technologies and industries, is the process of establishing a technical standard among competing entities in a market, where this will bring benefits without hurting competition. ... Note: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. ... Collins Radio was responsible for some of the most advanced radio receiving technology available between the 1940s and the 1970s. ... The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is the industry group representing the commercial radio stations and television stations of the United States. ...

It was widely used up until the late 1990s, when such formats as MiniDisc and computerized automation for radio stations made the Fidelipac cartridge obsolete. The Fidelipac cartridge is better known in broadcasting circles as a cart. The Sony MZ1 MiniDisc player, the first to hit the market in 1992. ...

The Fidelipac cartridge was the first audio tape cartridge available commercially, based off of the endless-loop audio tape cartridge design developed by Bernard Cousino in 1952. It was originally a 2-track format, with one of the tracks being used for monaural program audio, and the the other being used for a cue track to control the player, where either a secondary cue tone was recorded to automatically stop and/or re-cue the cart, or a tertiary tone, which was used by some players to trigger another cart player or another form of external equipment. Later versions used 3 tracks, 2 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 & recorders could be adjusted to record at other speeds, such as 3.75 or 15 ips. In sound recording, magnetic tape speed is often quoted in inches per second (abbreviated ips) for historical reasons. ...

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 rear 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. A blank 8-track tape The 8-track cartridge is an audio storage magnetic tape cartridge technology, popular from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. ... For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). ... William (Bill) Powell Lear (June 26, 1902 - May 14, 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. ... Capstans are found in the mechanisms of tape recorders in which they have a similar function to nautical capstans. ...

There were two sizes of Fidelipac carts available--the A size, which was a larger cartridge designed for holding longer programs, and the smaller and more common AA size, which was roughly the same size as the 8-track cartridge.

The AA size of Fidelipac cart 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 (4 in this case, with 2 played back at a time to provide 2 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 2 programs (much like the 8-track format, which also used a moving head to access its 4 stereo programs).

See also

• 8-track cartridge

A blank 8-track tape The 8-track cartridge is an audio storage magnetic tape cartridge technology, popular from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. ...

External links

• Photos and info about the Fidelipac cartridge
• History of Tape Recording technology, with a section on carts towards the end of the page