This little goody is called a "Gidget". It was made by a company called Automatic Radio. They made 4 track players, and 8 track players (using the correct cartridges, with 1/4 tape in them in a continuous loop.) This was in the 60s and early 70s. I bought my first 8 track player in 1967, and installed it in my dads 1966 Grand Prix. It had a slide in mount, with a key lock, so I just removed it after I was finished driving the car. As you can imagine, I am fairly old now, I will be 70 this coming June, anyway, the Gidget's function was to snap in to the round hole in the bottom of a 4 track cartridge, and function as the capstan wheel, as 4 track cartridges had no built in capstan pinch roller, that was part of a 4 track player, it would just pop up from below. So, Automatic Radio invented the Gidget for the owner of the more modern 8 track players to pop this into one of their 4 track cartridges, and be able to play it in an 8 track player, as all 8 track cartridges had their own rubber capstan roller inside them from the factory where they were made. 4 track cartridges did not. So, this was a nifty little adapter that allowed you to play an older 4 track cartridge in an 8 track player. Hope you can visualize this! You might look up some 4 and 8 track cartridges and players on ebay to check it out!
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