The TAPS-8 was adapted from the TAPS-6 to operate on moorings. The transducers were moved to a block welded on the side of the pressure housing so that they would look horizontally when the case was clamped to a mooring wire or installed in a mooring cage. External power was assumed -- either from the buoy or from external battery packs. The pictures below show the transducer block on the side of the electronics case (left) and a complete mooring in a cage (right, laying on deck next to the buoy).
These systems have been used extensively in the Gulf of Alaska and points north, by Dr. Jeff Napp at the NOAA lab in Seattle. Some of the data from one program he was part of can be found here.
I upgraded the design of the TAPS-8 to use the newer, TAPS-6NG cards insofar as possible. This system was designed using external transducers so the problems of pointing the transducers could be solved separately from that of mounting the electronics and battery cases.
There were some issues with the CPU card I selected, causing spotty results from long-term moorings. NOAA has designed new CPU cards using newer single-board computers and programs written in C. Initial testing was successful and units are currently deployed in the Chukchi Sea.