As usual, the Wikipedia is your friend. Look here. There were also 8-track cartridges (look here). Both mediums were used for digital information with the compact cassettes used much more commonly. Most of the early hobby computers had the ability to generate and decode digital information as audio and programs could be recorded on conventional audio cassettes that way. Some business computers used a heavy duty cassette for direct digital recording (rather than audio encoded digital data). Datapoint, for example, had a dual cassette drive which could be used for booting an operating system from one drive and named files could be kept on a cassette in either drive.
cassette tapes??/ They were a way to make vinyl LP's ..........oh, never mind!!!
Ok, everybody, Maddie asked for it - things that you have that are MORE than 19 years old:
Wedding Ring
Several Cameras
LP's
Casette Tapes
A multi-meter
Several yard tools
A couple of televisions
A VCR (Maddie, think of cassette tapes with VIDEO on them )
.
.
I'm sure there are more.......
Haha I'm just kidding (but I couldn't resist!)- fortunately I grew up in a household that has taught me about the evolution of media, communication and technology (cassettes, 8-tracks, records, VHS, DVD, CDs) and *especially* computers.
Basically, I was the only student in class who has watched Tron before the sequel and understood the jokes in the original Tron.
It's awesome to have an engineer in the household (lecture after historical lecture :] )....
Now, anyone have a nickel for the Jukebox?
The idea is to stay healthy, well balanced, and delay meeting the grim reaper for as long as possible. Avoiding any entanglements with imperial forces may help too!
Maddie:
There's a round plastic blue cylinder that came in a very old cardboard tube with a picture of Thomas Edison on it. Any idea how to use that?
When I was a kid my parents had a console stereo system. These things were pretty common in those days; it was a self contained piece of furniture about the size of two end tables, containing a radio receiver, turntable, amplifier (with tubes so it had to warm up), and speakers.
The vinyl album turntable had a feature which let you play a stack of albums. You put as many records as the thing would hold above an offset in the spindle, where they were held level by a swinging arm; when the playing record finished, a totally mechanical mechanism would detect that the play needle had moved into the center of the record, withdraw the play arm, detect the size of the next record by running the play arm up against its rim, drop the next record, and then move the play arm in to start playing it. You could have hours of your own music without human intervention, as long as you wanted to play it in the order it came on the albums.
The thing also had a 45 RPM adapter, which would let you pull the same trick with singles, which were smaller and had a much bigger hole in the middle.
When I was in my early teens a song came out that I REALLY liked and I splurged to buy the 45. I really wanted to listen to that song all day long but I the stereo didn't offer a way to do that.
So I got a piece of styrofoam sheet and cut and chiseled on it until it would fit snug on the 45 adapter, and with some experimentation whittled away and taped up an edge at exactly the right distance from the center. I put my single on the turntable, and my hack on the spindle. When the song finished the needle arm came up, swung up, detected the detent I'd put in, and then tried to drop the next record -- which didn't drop, because the foam hack was snug on the adapter. The needle dropped right back into place on my 45 and the repeat function was implemented.
One tube Ham radio transmitter
Knight kit Star Roamer
Lafayette Radio Electronics catalog
S9 Magazine
Tin can humanoid
Liquid solder in a tube
Gramophone
Atwater Kent speakers
B&W Outer Limits
Comments
Random character: "Well, pardon me for living"
Death: "THERE'S NO PARDON FOR LIVING!"
XD
-19 years old
MaddieTheIntern
Cassette tapes were the things that required an adapter in order to play in my van's 8-track player.
Ok, everybody, Maddie asked for it - things that you have that are MORE than 19 years old:
Wedding Ring
Several Cameras
LP's
Casette Tapes
A multi-meter
Several yard tools
A couple of televisions
A VCR (Maddie, think of cassette tapes with VIDEO on them
.
.
I'm sure there are more.......
@Maddie the Intern
It was MUCH worse when I turned 20!!
Basically, I was the only student in class who has watched Tron before the sequel and understood the jokes in the original Tron.
It's awesome to have an engineer in the household (lecture after historical lecture :] )....
Now, anyone have a nickel for the Jukebox?
That's a great story. Thanks for sharing.
Martin:
The idea is to stay healthy, well balanced, and delay meeting the grim reaper for as long as possible. Avoiding any entanglements with imperial forces may help too!
Maddie:
There's a round plastic blue cylinder that came in a very old cardboard tube with a picture of Thomas Edison on it. Any idea how to use that?
When I was a kid my parents had a console stereo system. These things were pretty common in those days; it was a self contained piece of furniture about the size of two end tables, containing a radio receiver, turntable, amplifier (with tubes so it had to warm up), and speakers.
The vinyl album turntable had a feature which let you play a stack of albums. You put as many records as the thing would hold above an offset in the spindle, where they were held level by a swinging arm; when the playing record finished, a totally mechanical mechanism would detect that the play needle had moved into the center of the record, withdraw the play arm, detect the size of the next record by running the play arm up against its rim, drop the next record, and then move the play arm in to start playing it. You could have hours of your own music without human intervention, as long as you wanted to play it in the order it came on the albums.
The thing also had a 45 RPM adapter, which would let you pull the same trick with singles, which were smaller and had a much bigger hole in the middle.
When I was in my early teens a song came out that I REALLY liked and I splurged to buy the 45. I really wanted to listen to that song all day long but I the stereo didn't offer a way to do that.
So I got a piece of styrofoam sheet and cut and chiseled on it until it would fit snug on the 45 adapter, and with some experimentation whittled away and taped up an edge at exactly the right distance from the center. I put my single on the turntable, and my hack on the spindle. When the song finished the needle arm came up, swung up, detected the detent I'd put in, and then tried to drop the next record -- which didn't drop, because the foam hack was snug on the adapter. The needle dropped right back into place on my 45 and the repeat function was implemented.
B&W TV
Transistor radios
Knight kit Star Roamer
Lafayette Radio Electronics catalog
S9 Magazine
Tin can humanoid
Liquid solder in a tube
Gramophone
Atwater Kent speakers
B&W Outer Limits