The Man Who Invented "Kerchunk"! Interview with Frank Schmidt f-schmidt@kscable.com

Mr. Frank Schmidt was a member of the original design team that developed the 8-track tape at the Lear Jet Company in the early 1960's. I ran into Frank on the 8-track Heaven web site, and he graciously consented to an interview. It was fascinating to talk with one of the engineers of our sacred 8-track tape! Frank has an excellent memory for details, something we're all hungry for when it comes to 8-track lore. Today, Frank lives right outside Wichita, KS, not far from the birthplace of the 8-track tape itself.

May, 1999: Phone interview with Frank Schmidt:

Malcolm: So you were involved in the design team for the 8-track tape from July 1964 until late 1966?

Frank: I was originally working with the aircraft group at Lear, and when they re-organized the stereo group, they asked me if I wanted to go to it, so I said yes. At that time, the existing design group had given up on the first version of the machine, which was a 4-track machine. At that time, there was no Lear Stereo, it was Lear Aircraft. Bill Lear had put his plant in Wichita, which is the air capitol of the world. The primary thing was building the Lear Jet, which was a revolutionary concept, a private jet. I remember that Bill was always interested in automotive sound – that goes back to Motorola. He was the father and founder of Motorola, and the car radio.

The machine was designed in a very conventional manner like Delco radios of the day: sheet metal type wraparound case with everything sandwiched in. It used a 12-volt motor with flywheel. It was belt driven to the captain… it just didn’t work, too much wow and flutter and problem with speed control. It had a lot of problems.

So we started on a new design with an integral (direct drive) motor, with the motor and capstan as one unit. So that’s what the Lear Stereos had in them. We called them the "pancake" motor, because it was 4.7 inches in dia. and 1.3 inches thick. It weighed about 3 lb. and was the fly wheel for the drive capstan.

So they were not belt driven?

Absolutely not. Later on, the technology and the electronics caught up so you could make a decent speed control and get away with the belt. You have to remember that it was 1964! Technology was not all that great at the time. The motor we used was a direct-drive motor… a very revolutionary direct drive motor. That’s one of the key reasons that that sucker was so darn good.

What ever happened to those prototypes?

I have two of them here! They used basically a 12-volt motor built backwards. In a conventional motor, the armature rotated and the field was stationary. In Bill’s motor, the field rotated and the armature was still. Our group developed this thing, along with the first players.

About 75% of my time, though, was spent developing the cartridge.

So how did you go about re-designing the Muntz cartridge?

Well, when I got there, one of the things Bill was intrigued with was the Muntz system. One of the things of course was to adapt it into an automobile. The Muntz stuff had a lot of problems when you got it into an automobile. That was, I believe, one of the downfalls of the 8-track. It was a system that just did not lend itself to the environment that you find in an automobile.

Which is what it was originally designed for!

Yes, it was originally put into automobiles; there was consideration for putting the players elsewhere. Bill’s focus was always on auto sound, vis a vis the Motorola radio. That was his primary concern: automotive and the aircraft.

There was also a monaural system that was around, an endless loop system on a great big cartridge used in stores for announcements and so forth. The endless loop system wasn’t really anything new… a lot of this stuff was out there, it was just a matter of putting it together.

Putting it together and marketing it.

Yes. He was a marketer. Bill was a marketing genius… and a fundraiser.

The original concept was going before I got there, which was to use basically the four track system. He was interested in getting around the patent that Muntz had. And that’s where the pinch roller came. All the early development was done using the Muntz cartridges – we machined them and modified them and added a roller to them. We had dozens of Muntz decks and hundreds of cartridges – I remember they had gray bottoms and clear plastic tops. All our development work was done with those.

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