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Tape 020

Magnetic Tape (Tee!)

cassette tape

Maxell XLII-S 90 new in wrapper came from 1992 [Position: High]. They can still be found, but prices are rising.

cassette tape
Maxell XLII-S 90 new in wrapper came from 1992 [Position: High]. They can still be found, but prices are rising.

Cassette

The word comes from romantic language roots and in Italian, it means case, crate, trunk, or box (see the link below).

So, while redesigning this site for v6, I made sure I had an option for the cassette tape format for the completely overhauled NowPlaying section of the site. Even though the design used there is an older BASF style tape, it was satisfying to design.


UPDATE 1: See this post of OMD for an example.

UPDATE 2: I just discovered Simon Collison’s excellent recent journal entry about the physicality and time-travelling aspects of cassette tapes. It’s a wonderful and personal read.


Tape

Well, this Maxell cassette tape has been on my desk for years, just waiting to be made into a mix tape. This specific tape was manufactured in England in 1992. So, I wen’t and did something crazy and bought a tape deck. Time to make a mixtape (I’ll write about the deck soon). Actually, what was interesting to learn is that tape recorder playback heads that read (or record to) the tape itself were largely manufactured by similar factories but used in many different brands. There’s an exhaustive history of cassette tapes out there, though. Sadly, these days, the factories that manufactured really good parts are either out of business, retooled for other products, or, who know, something else entirely. So the older devices are still the good ones.

Only a few short weeks ago I had a dream that I found myself in a record store that had only a few 10 packs of these left on clearance. And do you know what I did in that dream?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cassa#Italian

Like it? You can โ˜•๏ธ Buy Me Cocoa.

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