The history of consumer electronics is littered with devices that just didn’t make it. This is one of the most obscure ones I’ve ever heard of.
Back in 1964, while the world was just getting into 8-tracks and cassettes, Sanyo came out with something called the Micro-Pack. This was a portable tape machine that used a cartridge featuring a continuous loop of tape that was somewhere between an 8-track and a cassette. It was never meant for music. No pre-recorded music was ever released in this format. Instead, it was marketed as an “audio camera,” something that could be used to capture things like a baby’s first words, speeches and letters that were spoken instead of written.
Unfortunately, audio quality was horrible, and outside of a few units that were sold in Japan, the Sanyo Micro-Pack died a very quick and deserved death.
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