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Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

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Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#21

Post by to3m »

WalterBright wrote: post #6

I am glad to be done with cassette tapes. I never liked the hissiness, and the rewinding. I'm tired of car stereos eating the tapes. I'm sick of the 5 tapes in my car that got listened to over and over. My boxes of tapes went in the garbage 10 years ago. My current car stereo I bought for $75 has only a USB port, and I stuck a 32G thumb drive in it with gawd knows how many tunes are on it. Mucho better. I enjoy infli…

Totally. Maybe the hiss is what they mean about the technology still making noise? :)

I still have a tape player in my car. (My car is 15 years old, with a proprietary stereo moulded into the fascia, so as long as I have this car I'm probably stuck with it.) I have one of those tape adapter things so I can listen to music played through my phone. Quality is OK, but every now and again the wheels get stuck, the stereo switches sides, and the music goes off. It's 2015, and cassette tape technology is still causing me problems. I can hardly believe it.

Cassette tapes were bullshit, and I can't believe people can't see it.

We've already had people wanting CRTs back. I dread to think what's next. A floppy disk revival? Long play VHS? Black and white TV?

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#22

Post by TD-Linux »

stinos wrote: post #17

I would like to see MiniDisc get the same attention. Guess that'll never happen again as it was always a bit niche while tape was as mainstream as it can get. Ok it's digital and somewhat more expensive but apart from that it imo is very similar (easy to record, share, portable) yet has much advantages over tape (noise, portables last way longer, medium does not lose signal under normal circumstances, less mechanical…

>easy to record, share

This was actually one thing leading to minidisc's demise. The DRM doesn't allow you to extract your recordings digitally. They fixed this eventually, but it was too late and flash memory had already taken over.

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#23

Post by nnbvv »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #9

I make arrowheads for my DIY bow from bottle glass and stone because I want to know how it was like hunting thousands of years ago. I see little children having curiosity about those "cassetes" thing, but it is a five minutes thing. I actually lived casettes and HATE them. I sold all my collection, burned the piece of furniture that held it in a night of San Juan fire. Great memories (the fire and the party on the be…

> I see little children having curiosity about those "cassetes" thing, but it is a five minutes thing.

That's quite a condescending and misinformed attitude. Tape recordings have never gone away in certain music scenes, and those scenes are occupied mostly by older music listeners for whom it's a matter nostalgia or aesthetic preference.

Tape hiss goes well with certain extreme styles of music, IMO.

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#24

Post by digi_owl »

TD-Linux wrote: post #22
stinos wrote: post #17

I would like to see MiniDisc get the same attention. Guess that'll never happen again as it was always a bit niche while tape was as mainstream as it can get. Ok it's digital and somewhat more expensive but apart from that it imo is very similar (easy to record, share, portable) yet has much advantages over tape (noise, portables last way longer, medium does not lose signal under normal circumstances, less mechanical…

>easy to record, share This was actually one thing leading to minidisc's demise. The DRM doesn't allow you to extract your recordings digitally. They fixed this eventually, but it was too late and flash memory had already taken over.

Crazy thing is that if you could get your hands on a pro market minidisc deck, you could extract all you liked.

I think another thing sunk it, write speed.

To write to Magnet-Optical media, you first use a laser to heat the surface until it becomes magnetic. Then you zero the bit using a readwrite head much like on a HDD or floppy. Then you set it to the zero or one you want to actually be.

All this back and forth means that MO can't really keep up with HDD or flash.

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#26

Post by byuu »

to3m wrote: post #21
WalterBright wrote: post #6

I am glad to be done with cassette tapes. I never liked the hissiness, and the rewinding. I'm tired of car stereos eating the tapes. I'm sick of the 5 tapes in my car that got listened to over and over. My boxes of tapes went in the garbage 10 years ago. My current car stereo I bought for $75 has only a USB port, and I stuck a 32G thumb drive in it with gawd knows how many tunes are on it. Mucho better. I enjoy infli…

Totally. Maybe the hiss is what they mean about the technology still making noise? :) I still have a tape player in my car. (My car is 15 years old, with a proprietary stereo moulded into the fascia, so as long as I have this car I'm probably stuck with it.) I have one of those tape adapter things so I can listen to music played through my phone. Quality is OK, but every now and again the wheels get stuck, the stereo…

> Cassette tapes were bullshit, and I can't believe people can't see it.

Just your typical hipster trendiness nonsense. Anyone who grew up using cassette tapes knows exactly how awful they are, and are glad to be rid of them. At least they didn't try and bring back the 8-track :P

> I dread to think what's next. A floppy disk revival? Long play VHS? Black and white TV?

CEDs, definitely. "The analog nature makes movies so much warmer!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#27

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #9

I make arrowheads for my DIY bow from bottle glass and stone because I want to know how it was like hunting thousands of years ago. I see little children having curiosity about those "cassetes" thing, but it is a five minutes thing. I actually lived casettes and HATE them. I sold all my collection, burned the piece of furniture that held it in a night of San Juan fire. Great memories (the fire and the party on the be…

I was recently looking into getting an album from a Canadian band. They're still playing that BS "import CD" game and wanted $26. The same on vinyl was $13.

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#28

Post by idlewords »

andretti1977 wrote: post #3

Maybe OT, but i remember the "power of tape" when i was 10 in 1987, when an italian public radio broadcasted a full videogame (compressed by "turbo loader") every day and it was possible to record and play it on that beautiful commodore 64!

Polish radio did this as well—I'm delighted to hear there are other examples!

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#29

Post by agumonkey »

stinos wrote: post #17

I would like to see MiniDisc get the same attention. Guess that'll never happen again as it was always a bit niche while tape was as mainstream as it can get. Ok it's digital and somewhat more expensive but apart from that it imo is very similar (easy to record, share, portable) yet has much advantages over tape (noise, portables last way longer, medium does not lose signal under normal circumstances, less mechanical…

I often wonder how things would have been if Sony had released MD as simple storage medium. It got out in 1992! Imagine having rewritable hundreds of megabytes at the time.

Re: Cassette Revolution: 1980s Tape Tech Is Still Making Noise in Our Digital World

#30

Post by geon »

DanBC wrote: post #16
tommyd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall reading that the BBC did the same for the BBC Micro, although I can't find a reference now. Waiting half an hour for a game to load just to find the tape had got corrupted right near the end ("R Tape Loading Error" on the ZX Spectrum I grew up with) was one of the aspects I less fondly remember!

The BBC Micro had a port for a light pen. There was a small rubber sucker attachment that you could stick to a TV screen, with the light pen attached. The BBC (tv station) had a programme (probably MicroLive) that would overlay a flashing block on a small section of the screen. The light pen would read that flashing and you'd have a small program. Here's someone talking about it: http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum…

Assuming PAL with 50Hz refreshrate (interleaved), that would be max 50 bit/s.
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