# What's the difference between mini, standard, and compact cassettes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 8, 2001, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-mini-standard-and-compact-cassettes/71714 "2001-07-08T18:17:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-mini-standard-and-compact-cassettes/71714/1 "2001-07-08T18:17:05Z")
Recent dubious statements about the legality of mp3s got me thinking about other recording media. A few years ago, I was surprised to find that a mini-cassette recorder played not the tiny tapes found in some answer machines and tape recorders (micro-cassettes), but the normal audio tapes you can buy at Radio Shack, Wal-Mart, or the local pharmacy. Why then, are they called “mini”? Is there a precursor cassette that was bigger? It was my impression that other than 8-track, previous tapes had been reel to reel. The question is further complicated by [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41702), where **Sunspace** alleges normal cassettes are properly referred to as “compact” cassettes, a view seconded by [this site](http://www.waynetronics.com/Cassette%20Tapes.htm). The latter site, however, implies there are mini-cassettes which are not the same as standard or compact cassettes. What’s the deal here? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2001, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-mini-standard-and-compact-cassettes/71714/2 "2001-07-08T23:39:05Z")
Wow, someone remembers my replies! :😊: 🙂 Yes, as I gather, normal tape cassettes were called “compact” when they were invented in the 1950s or 1960s, presumably because they were so much smaller than reel-to-reel tape and 8-track tape. This is similar to the way that CDs started out as “comapct (audio) discs”, because they were so much smaller that vinyl LPs. I remember tape cassettes from the seventies, that had a little “compact cassette” logo on them. A short search found one in my collection of tapes, so I scanned and [posted](http://www.sunspace.org/tape.html) it. I just looked at your link (the HTML link was a little broken and I had to go to the top of [waynetronics.com](http://waynetronics.com)) and the “mini-cassette” described there is new to me. I was about to say that the “mini cassette recorder” you mentioned just referred to the size of the tape recorder, not the size of the tapes, but it looks like I was wrong. I’ve read of a couple of other post-8-track tape cassette formats that lost out to the compact cassette. Sony had one called the Elcaset, and I think there was at least one other. I’ve never seen either of them though. ---
**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2001, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-mini-standard-and-compact-cassettes/71714/3 "2001-07-09T00:23:59Z")
I’ve actually seen the standard tapes themselves referred to as mini-cassettes, such as [here](http://www.poundart.com/art/cassettes/cassettes.html), admittedly not the best source. You’d think that a mini-cassette recorder would use mini-cassettes. Unfortunately, I didn’t put in that extra half hour of searching before posting my question, or I would have found [this](http://www.officedirectinc.com/Dictapes.htm) a while ago. The mini cassettes pictured are indeed unlike any other tapes I’ve seen, and at a price only a professional transcriptionist could love. I accept the argument that “compact cassette” was a bit redundant, not intended to distinguish them from mega cassettes which once roamed the countryside. Question answered. Gracias. Follow-up: The [“Compact Cassette” logo](http://www.sunspace.org/tape.html) **Sunspace** posted reminds me of the Compact Disc logo found on CDs. Any idea if it’s the same idea of a cooperative industry logo to promote the medium, and if so, why’d it disappear? ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2001, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-difference-between-mini-standard-and-compact-cassettes/71714/4 "2001-07-10T05:32:20Z")
**The SIZE**