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How about a cassette you can turn over and record both sides like an audio tape. Here you have it. It was marketed for a while in Europe and was a joint effort of Phillips, Pye and Grundig. As you can see from the above photo this cassette was capable of recording four hours, two hours each way at the standard speed. There was a model that recorded at a super slow speed for a total of sixteen hours. Take that VHS! Click on the photo and take note of the interesting double hinged lid shown in the upper left. It was held closed by a collar which was slid back when the cassette was inserted into the machine. It could open either way, depending on which side was up when it was inserted. The lid had no solid locking device but it was held in position by a pretty strong spring pushing against it from inside. As you can see in the above there were two locating holes and another one for the reel locks release. Click on the photo again and things get interesting. Here in the upper left you see the collar return spring and the very special tape end leader. On the last several feet of each end of the half inch tape was a quarter inch wide foil strip. End detection was by a photocell activated by a light reflecting off the foil surface. The reel locks were pushed open by a pin moving the fulcrum lever as the cassette was loaded. As you might of figured by now recording only took place on half of the tape, making this the equivalent of a quarter inch system. The machines themselves were very interesting and information on them is available on the W3. Click again on the picture to see it without the explanatory graphics. To continue on to VHS click here. To go back to the page on the Quasar Cassette click here. |