http://www.alesis.com/support.php?cat=adat

The original Alesis ADAT was a 20-bit digital recording system that could record 8 channels on to tape cartridges. Several units could be slaved together to record larger numbers of channels. As well as analog ins and outs, it had an optical link ("lightpipe") capable of carrying 8 channels of 24-bit data at up to 48KHz. Including housekeeping bits, this created a bit rate of 12.288 Mbits/sec, which was about the limit of the Toslink optical connection system used.

The term ADAT has come to stand for both the original digital tape machines and also for the lightpipe data transmission system. The ADAT lightpipe has become an audio industry standard for digital data transmission between units other than the original ADAT tape machines.

i see !! thanks alot

key importance was that it was modular
it was possible to scale up to a large system
and with two decks proper back-ups and duplicates were possible

it may not seem like much today but it meant people in different locations could work on the same project and you could build up many tracks and options for the one song

With a BRC - Big Remote Control
the sync was excellent and the ability to cut and paste into different parts of the song was possible

we ... :) ... at the bottom end of the pro market loved them ... for ALL their faults

There was a top of the charts song from an anrgy woman ... with a distorted bit on the big vocal line ... that was said to be recorded and produced on ADATs ... (you can search the net for the full story)
it all helped to fuel the ADAT band wagon

I still have two XTs and a BRC ... I sold the others and thought there was to be some archive work and transfer into ProTools

it never happened ... want to buy a couple of ADATs ?
:)

ermm not sure if i want to buy any ! at the moment i need to improve everything else ive got lol !

thanks anyway