Memorex was a popular US tape manufacturer in the 1970s, promoting their line of low noise, high output tapes (type 3) at the same price level as their competitor’s low noise (type 2) formulations. When they were popular, their tapes were shipped in a black clam-shell box. At the time, their tapes were considered to be high quality. They never produced tapes with back coating, and to our knowledge all of their formulations are usable today and do not suffer from sticky shed or LBL. Our experience certifying these tapes confirm this.
Although we have seen a number of different formulations and reel designs through their production run, the tapes themselves were not designated by product line or a formula type. As a result, we have elected to identify them by reel type, either single window (earlier formulation) and triple window (later formulation). At some point int he future, we plan to test whether there is a meaningful quality difference between the two. They also produced a rare EE type tape using their cassette CrO2 formulation, of which we have 12 reels available for collectors or testing. They also produced a short run of professional high output tapes called “Quantum” in 1980, and these are available as well. They have a good reputation. Later, Memorex was purchased by Tandy Corp (Parent of Radio Shack) in 1981, and soon after they exited the reel to reel tape business.
