Two Audio Cassettes, Macro, Isolated On White Background. Royalty-Free Stock Image

A compact cassette (or simply a cassette, English Compact Cassette, from the French cassette — a box) is a portable data carrier on a magnetic tape. It is mostly used for recording and playing sound. It was first introduced in 1963 by the Philips company. Due to its relative cheapness, it was the most popular audio medium for a long time (from the early 1980s to the 2000s), but later (from about the early 2000s) it was supplanted by the compact disc and minidisc. Also, compact cassettes served as external media for early PCs. Recording is carried out on a magnetic tape divided into two (mono) or four (stereo) sound tracks (cassettes have 2 sides - one or two tracks are available on each side).The width of the tape in the cassette is 3.81 mm, the speed of movement during playback and recording is 4.76 cm s. Cassette dimensions: 102 mm long, 64 mm wide, and 12 mm thick.