This was a BASF chrome cassette design that brought down the curtain on the 1980s black-encased products, which had evolved visually in both subtle and more dramatic increments through the course of the decade.
Compared with its immediate predecessor, this design markedly simplified the user-write label, adding large side numbers and minimising the linework. The model name was revised from CR-E II to Chromdioxid Extra II, and the product ID strip within the labelling switched from light blueish-grey to black. The casing was similiar to, but not exactly the same as, that found on the 1988 CR-E II.
Big change lay just around the corner, as the entire casing would receive a revolutionary makeover, which was not at all in keeping with BASF’s slow casing evolution of the 1980s. But the revolutionised grey casings that followed these more conventional black ones, would not set a template for the 1990s. That would come with the next redesign, which took BASF chrome tapes into the almost inevitable domain of clear plastic.
Tape Tardis 