Deluxe Digital Studios: Difference between revisions
→How to Tell
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* From mid-February 1986 to sometime in 1996, there was a convex sticker under the front label with a bar code, a set of 8 numbers, a six-digit code starting with M, and the tape nominal length (e.g. T-120). Such tapes have the white screen test pattern, usually for half a minute, followed by a black screen for 20 seconds before the tape ended. Starting in late 1986, a loud 5-second blare (commonly nicknamed "the moaning sound", and that term will be used to refer to this blare for the rest of this article) plays in the last few seconds.
* Around the beginning of August 1985, an early form of the rectangular sticker was introduced. It consisted of a medium-sized bar code and a set of 11 numbers.
** The sticker evolved over the years. Its first major change came in late 1988: a bigger barcode with an 18-digit code. Colored sides were introduced in July 1989; red was the first. Cyan came next, in early October 1991. Then came magenta in mid-April 1992, green in mid-May 1992, and yellow in mid-June 1992. Blue was the last to show up, sometime in 1996. From Q4 1995, the bar code was smaller in height.
** The next step in evolution, in mid-August 1991, used the same size bar code, but four sequences of numbers: a six-digit code, a single digit, another six-digit code, and a five-digit code. Only tapes before late August 1995 used the white screen test pattern. Some early tapes with this sticker had the red colored sides.
** On some tapes from the 1980s to mid-1990s, there's a barcode without any numbers with a sticker on top of the barcode. Tapes with this barcode mainly have the moaning sound only at the end, while some tapes with this barcode have the white screen test pattern and full-screen static before it, such as EP/SLP mode tapes with this barcode.
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