The Compact Cassette, also called Musicassette (MC), cassette tape, audiocassette, K7, is a magnetic tape sound recording format for audio/sound recording and playback. Compact cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a pre-recorded cassette, or as fully recordable “blank” cassette. It was designed originally for dictation machines, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel tape recording in most non-professional applications. Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers. Between the early 1970s and the late 1990s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP record and later the Compact Disc.