DAT

acronym Also written dat (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Science and Technology) Short for digital audio tape, a kind of audio tape on which sound is recorded digitally, equivalent in quality to a digital recording on CD. Also, a piece or cassette of digital audio tape. Etymology: An acronym, formed on the initial letters of Digital Audio Tape. History and Usage: Digital audio tape was developed experimentally at the beginning of the eighties and had started to be called DAT outside technical trade sources by 1985. It was widely used in recording studios as a convenient form of high-quality master tape. However, when commercial production was first talked about in the mid eighties there was near panic among some record producers (called DATphobia by one music paper), since DAT was expected to pose a considerable threat to the growing compact disc market, and to be much more difficult to protect from copying and piracy. After a lull in the late eighties, the word came back into the news in 1990 as companies talked of making DAT commercially available in 1991. Compact Discs have been marketed as the ultimate in sound. If DAT allows you to copy CDs...with absolutely no loss in that quality, where does this put the major record houses currently investing sharp-intake-of-breath sized sums on CD pressing plants? Q Oct. 1986, p. 18 The introduction of DAT has been bitterly fought here by record companies fearing unstoppable competition to compact discs. Music & Musicians International Feb. 1988, p. 14 During a visit to Japan a year or so ago, I was convinced the year for consumer DAT is '91. I still believe that to be the case. Music Week 23 June 1990, p. 4