The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called
eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a
magnetic-tape sound recording technology that was popular[2] from the
mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the Compact Cassette tape, which
predated 8-track, surpassed it in popularity for pre-recorded
music.[3][4] The format is obsolete and was relatively unknown outside
the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia,
Mexico, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Japan.[3][4][5] The
main advantage of the 8-track tape cartridge is that it does not have to
be "flipped over" to play the alternative set of tracks.