Digital Audio Tape (DAT) is a type of magnetic tape used for recording and playback of audio signals. It was developed in the late 1980s as a replacement for analog audio tape, and was widely used in professional recording studios until the early 2000s when digital audio formats such as Compact Discs (CDs) and hard disk recording became more popular. DAT tapes are still used in some applications, such as archiving and data storage.