new to 4-tracks

[field]

well i'm sure there's a few of these topics around already (and more with people saying "i know this has been asked before...") BUT i have a few things i want to work out all at once... and i can't really seem to find an answer to some of these things.

i've played around with recording on tapes and things for years and i guess i'd like to step up (well maybe not for you guys) and get a standard cassette 4-track to muck around with. here's a couple of things that i'd like for it to able to do:

• optionally battery-powered so i can take it around to record things... i'd like nice quality and obviously with a cassette it's not going to be crystal-clear or anything... but i'd still like to to be good enough for say nature field recordings. is this possible? (with a decent mic/technique)
• reasonably small... able to fit in a backpack. but i don't need to be tiny.
• multi-track standard instruments as a sketch pad.. and obviously this is the most basic thing ever... but what i mean is that i want a 4 track that can do this as well as the enviroment recording... not one just one of them.

now i know there are digital recorders that could probably do this and it's hard to explain... but i'd rather have a no-frills system to build up some skills and maybe move onto a better system if i need it. and i've been playing with tapes for so long that i don't really want to change.

i have had a look around and the tascam porta one seems to fit the bill i guess... but i don't really have any experience with this at all. although, it runs on 10 C batteries which seems kind of costly/bulky... but again, i'm not sure, maybe that's standard for a cassette recorder?

so can someone point me around here? i'm probably being pretty unclear, so i'll answer any questions if you don't quite understand.

thanks!

[junplugged]

if you have a pc, that runs at least win2k or higher, you could use MR8 by Fostex, it fits no frills, is basically a 4 track, but has 2 additional stereo tracks. PC for usb transfer/backup/ and archive of the song data. Actually, the new mr8 that has a HDD would probably be better now that I think of it b/c you wouldn't need to mess w/ CF cards, OTOH, i don't know if it's battery powered like the original - check out the Fostex thead....

[partsofmarc]

I started off on a yamaha MD4 and it was well worth it. I've recorded tons of stuff on that thing and it kept me busy for a couple of years. It records on an MD DATA disc which was kind of an expensive media considering what the thing did. I would strongly suggest that if you want to get something like a 4-track tape recorder, definitely look at the eight track machines. Whatever you pay extra, it is defenitely worth it. One can do so much more with an 8 track machine. Bouncing on a four track sucks. Yamaha has an MD8 that you may want to check out . I bet you could find one used for cheap. I used a four track tape machine a couple of times that my brother had which was cool. I kind of like the feel for them. If you are able to though, defininetly look at 8-track machine. I am sure that if you look around you'll find one in condition used for a good price.