Technology: The Tiniest Tape Ever

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In the 1950s tape recorders were cumbersome contraptions that weighed 20 pounds and used seven-inch tape reels. But in a field where smaller is usually better, tapes have steadily declined in size. Last week Dictaphone introduced the smallest yet: an office dictating system with a hand-held unit about the size of a pack of 100-mm cigarettes and a tape cassette hardly bigger than a commemorative postage stamp. The Picocassette, as it is called, weighs three grams and can hold 60 minutes of dictation on a tape that moves a glacial nine-tenths of a centimeter per second. The tape is about one-fourteenth the size of a standard audiocassette and not half as big as Microcassettes, which have been in use since 1969. The small machines are expensive: $395 for the hand-held dictating unit, $550 for the transcribing device and $20 for a package of three Picocassettes.

Officials of Rye, N.Y.-based Dictaphone, whose roots go back to a company founded by Alexander Graham Bell, figure Picocassettes will find a niche in the $285 million dictation market. They do not think the system will supplant existing equipment but say that the tiny tapes will be useful for executives on the road.