WI: Format War - Cassette Tape vs. a similar recording device

What if the Compact Cassette Tape, had a competing magnetic tape device, that was similar, but incompatable. Akin to the VHS vs. Betamax format war.

What effect would this have?
 
From a quick glance at Wikipedia, the most likely candidates are the 8-track:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_8) and the microcassette (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcassette), the latter of which is still found in some voice-recording/dictation machines. (Digital recording is more common now tho').

Having used both of those, i will comment.

8-tracks SUCK! Unless the one i had was sub-standard, you can't fast forward or reverse the tape, you can only switch between which of the four songs on the tape you wish to listen to. They're about 4 times the size of a cassette, and have about 1/4 the play time. I can see NO way that 8-tracks can compete with cassette tapes.

I recorded some songs on a microcassette. The sound quality isn't nearly as good. That said, i think it could improved, maybe by cutting down the play-time. The tapes are much smaller, so if recording quality were on par with cassettes, i think they could compete.

I think the MiniDisc is a good candidate. There are links to articles about other recording mediums at the bottom of that article.
 
I was thinking of some sort of magneto-optical medium too (aka Minidisc or Floptical). The problem is that MO discs were introduced in the late 80s/early 90s, so by that time, cassettes were popular already. Shift the MO development to late 70s, and you could have larger floppies (21MB was one such example) by the 80s. Tapes could be longer too.
 
From a quick glance at Wikipedia, the most likely candidates are the 8-track:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_8) and the microcassette (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcassette), the latter of which is still found in some voice-recording/dictation machines. (Digital recording is more common now tho').

The 8 Track?
Not very similar, something more similar.

The Microcassette?
Maybe, but too small.

I was aiming for something that doesn't exist in OTL, something of a similar design and size to the cassette tape, and has the same functionality. (Maybe it has slightly different quality and play-time, but the functionality is the same, though the differences between design and size would make each incompatable with the playing decks of the other.).
 
There *was* a format war between the compact cassette, then commonly known as the 4-track cassette, and the 8-track cassette. I was a teenager in those days, and it was not clear which format would win out. The 4-track won out at least as much for commercial reasons as for technical ones. Both formats were successful until the format war was won by the 4-track, and the 8-track went into decline.

Since the 4-track won, it has had 30 more years of development, so it is not fair to compare an 8-track against a modern compact cassette. At the time, both formats had problems, and during its decline the 8-tracks became more shoddily made.
 
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