How does the “next” button on a tape player work?
The tape player in my mom's car has a feature that I've never seen in a home CD player/stereo: a next button. If you press the button, it skips ahead to the next song, just like on a CD.
How does it do this? It seems like it wouldn't work on an analog device like a tape player, particularly with a recorded-from-a-CD tape. Perhaps the coding for a break in the CD was recorded to the tape? If so, what would it do on a tape composed mainly of 20-second or so clips interspersed with bits of songs?
The one I had detected a certain amount of silence.
It didn’t work well on some tapes / songs where there were longer rests; that’s where the ‘how it works’ became obvious.
Still, it was nicer than fast forward/stop.
The tape ‘head’ listens for gaps in the music…