8 Track tape thingys

Ooh, Craig Powerplay...the first component stereos for cars. Ya when you got a new 8 track tape they usually didn't play very well untill you wedged them in the player just right. The book of matches could be inserted under or over, folded to various thicknesses etc. to get the tape to play. Each tape had it's own "combination" which you learned and knew what shimming was required for each different one. Then there was always the track change right in the middle of the best song on the tape! 8 tracks actually sounded pretty good when they were new. It was the design of winding them back on themselves that caused all kinds of sound quality and tape performance issues.