Digital audiotape (DAT) records audio signals digitally, as a coded series of zeroes and ones. DAT also uses helical-scan technology, that is, it records diagonally across the width of the tape. Introduced in Japan and Europe in the late 1980s, DAT became available to consumers in the United States in 1990. The DAT cartridge itself is much smaller than its analog counterpart, about half its size, and the tape itself is .4-.5 mm (about .15-.2 inches) thick. It looks like a smaller version of a VHS videocassette. DAT has only become a standard in the music recording industry. As a commercial format for music and computer data back-up, DAT has faced intense competition and prevailed only in the latter.

A Sony product, DAT is primarily thought of as a music recording and playback format, comparable to the compact disc (CD) in sound quality. Indeed, DAT tapes feature...