Digital Audio Tape (DAT) is over in Japan. Sony has announced they're killing off the format. The last DAT product was released back in July of 1997 (I was 12), so I won't be shedding a tear.

Sony announced o­n the 25th that the final domestic shipments of Digital Audio Tape recorder products will be in early December.

The last product was the "TCD-D100 (released July of 1997) portable DAT recorder, and shipments of it will cease in early December. However, repairs and sale of DAT tapes will continue.

The company called off the sale of standalone style decks in 2004. The o­nly product to continue sale after that was the TCD-D100, but its monthly shipment was around 100 units. The total DAT product shipment count for Sony from 1987 is 660,000 units.

As to why they will be stopping shipments, the company said "Besides it becoming increasingly difficult for us to obtain product parts, Hi-MD and the 'PCM-D1' linear PCM recorders have been released, so we are recommending them as replacements to DAT users."

DAT is an audio cassette with a proprietary tape that records in the PCM format at sampling frequencies of 48, 44.1, and 32kHz. Sony released the "DTC-100ES" DAT deck in March of 1987, released portable recorders afterwards; several other makers also released DAT decks and recorders.

Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20051128/sony.htm

Press Release:
http://www.sony.jp/support/p-audio/contents/information/info_tcd-d100.html

Product Information:
http://www.ecat.sony.co.jp/audio/walkman/products/index.cfm?PD=208&KM=TCD-D100