Before that. Her breakthrough album was 1977 and Total Eclipse of the Heart came out in 1982, so it was more the 8-track era. It remained a staple of radio plays (remember those?) through the 80s and 90s though, and was remade by Nikki French into a chart-topping dance version in 1995.
A lot of HN is folks in their late 30s, 40s, and early 50s (and sometimes even older!), so many folks here would've overlapped with the radio era. A lot of folks here were involved in making YouTube/Instagram/TikTok, not listening to it.
I'm old enough to remember Walkmans coming out in 1979, which was the start of the end of the boombox era. Approximately no-one was using 8-track at that point.
I'm not quite that old, but didn't people look down on cassettes due to their lower audio quality? Weren't most home systems (hi-fis) still vinyl or 8-track for a while longer?
A big driver of cassettes then was the write ability, unlike 8 tracks. You could borrow your friend's new vinyl album, pop in a new cassette tape on your hi-fi, and record a copy of the album to the tape. Of course the Walkman then made listening to your new album fully portable.