OFF: 8-tracks (was HW: divided spiral galaxy)

[Damon C Capehart]

On Fri, 2 Aug 1996, William Stone wrote:
>   I remember but one cool 8 track, Pink Floyd's Animals.  There's a
> guitar solo connecting the 2 Pigs on the Wing. I don't think you can
> find it anywhere else...

I'm young (almost 23), but I have a fond memory of 8-tracks - more
precisely, I have a fond memory of a particular 8-track album.

It seems that at some point within 1980-1982, my mother had an 8-track
player.  The two 8-track tapes that I remember her having (possibly the
only ones) were Sgt.Pepper and PF's The Wall.  Now, being 6, 7, or 8
years old, I didn't care too much for the Beatles, so I couldn't tell you
anything about where the divisions on Sgt.Pepper were because I never
listened to that one.  But I clearly remember having absolutely no
problem with 8-tracks for two reasons:

1) The only 8-track album I ever listened to was The Wall, which already
had 4 sides.

2) The only cool application for 8-tracks, besides hacking up songs to
force them to fit, was a particular toy I had... it was a robot-looking
thing which had an 8-track "socket" in the front.  I think its name was
"PXR5" or something. :)  Seriously though, it was four letters/numbers,
though I don't remember exactly which ones.  Anyway, each 8-track came
with a quiz of some sort, and of course all of the questions were
multiple choice, each with 4 answers to choose from.  And of course you
would choose your answer by pressing A,B,C,or D, which would switch
"sides", or more accurately change tracks.  It was quite amusing for a
7-yr-old. :)

Damon Capehart        | "I think we should eliminate semicolons from the
aka Le Monsieur       |  English language; nobody uses them anymore
dcapehar at utdallas.edu |  anyway." - one of Dilbert's anonymous coworkers