I have some old Computer Music magazines that I have been reading through.  Recently, I have started to do their Tutorials, as it seems to be a good way to learn about DAWs.  Of course, they always use Logic or Cubase, so it is challenging oftentimes in Sonar.
 
The tutorial I did tonight concerned condensing multiple audio tracks into one audio track (mimicking what 60's producers would do).  The relevant instructions for one step were as follows:
 
"We’ll condense the guitar tracks into a single file by recording the master output into the free channel.  We're using Cubase here, but the principle is the same for other DAWs. Change the free channel’s output to No Bus, and its input to Stereo Mix. Now record-arm the track and hit the transport record to record the master into our free channel."
 
I was able to do this in Sonar, but I used a patch point.  Basically I created a patch point for three track's output, and used that same patch point as the input to the blank 4th track.
 
Did I do this correctly?

You could do it that way or as many here do simply export your master bus and import it back in. You can mute it or solo it as you wish. You can also bounce to a track.  Patch points are relatively new in Sonar but it works fine.  

Patch Points let you route tracks to other tracks. Functionally in SONAR, it's not really different from using a bus, it's mostly just a workflow thing. In the case of 60s producers, you're dealing with a lot of technical restraints on tracks counts at the time, but in some cases that can spark creative solutions, or at least make you commit to a mix decision. SONAR's not set to those same limitations. You could bounce the tracks and render digitally, or you could record a sum to a new track with patch points. Both will yield the same result.

From your quote, it actually sounds like the author was referring to "bouncing" rather than bussing. Both procedures entail combining ("condensing" to use his term) two or more tracks into one.
 
The difference is that with bussing you're just giving tracks a common destination, such as a patch point, aux track or bus in SONAR. The tracks themselves remain active and untouched. With bouncing, you are also combining those tracks but you're physically writing that combination to a fresh new track, and afterward you'd normally mute the original tracks because you won't be using them anymore.
 
If you were a producer in the 60's, you'd likely have been writing your data to a 2-, 4- or 8-track tape recorder. Being limited in the number of discrete tracks (meaning stripes on the magnetic tape), it was impossible to store more than 2, 4 or 8 individual recordings there. Bouncing would let you combine 2 or more of those tracks and re-record the combination onto another track, freeing up the original tracks to record more stuff. That's most likely what the writer you quoted was alluding to.
 
Nowadays, we no longer have such severe track limitations. A SONAR project can have as many tracks as your computer can handle, and even on a modest computer that number is large. But even today we sometimes max out what our CPU can handle, so bouncing remains a useful technique - not for allowing more storage but for reducing CPU usage and disk I/O.
 
Merging tracks onto a bus, patch point or aux track can be similarly used to conserve CPU cycles, because multiple tracks can then share processors (e.g. reverb). More often, this technique is just a convenience. If 10 tracks share a common reverb plugin, for example, it's much easier to adjust that reverb for those tracks all at once. It can simplify mixing by allowing you to adjust multiple related instruments' levels as a group (e.g. drums). But it's different from bouncing because the result is not a new track, just a summation of existing ones.

This sounds exactly like what "bounce to track" is supposed to do. I'd simply solo the 3 guitar tracks and then Bounce to Track. Although I've learned in Sonar that there are certainly various ways to accomplish the same task. (BTW, I discoved years ago that I needed to "select none" before bouncing to track. So I always just automatically do that right before bouncing. No idea if it's actually necessary anymore.)

There would seem no benift in these times to bounce your  tracks. I was glad to leave that era behind. As Bitflipper said we used to HAVE to do this because we only HAD 4 -8-16 or 24 tracks. We now have unlimited tracks so bouncing is no longer required. 
Is it just a desire to return to the past to get the same sound? 
Just use a buss to sum multiple tracks. 
You could duplicate a 4 or 8 track senerio this way but with the option of re mixing those "bounces" 

bitflipper, you always respond so well and clearly in your posts.  

Cactus and Bit said exactly what my first thought was; why combine and bounce the guitars when you can send them to a bus or other options to combine in a mix....but still have the original individual guitars to work with too. These days with an average machine there's no need to combine right away..

Perhaps I wasn't clear on the reasoning for this.  I was just doing a tutorial that was mimicking production techniques of the 1960s, that is all.   These tutorials are a good way for me to learn Sonar.  I haven't got into busses or aux tracks or anything, I was just clicking around and got it to work with patch points.
 
Bitflipper, I learn a ton from your posts, thank you.