Taping from the radio in 2017

How things have changed. Long ago, when I was grass-high to a knee-hopper, I used to record tunes from the radio onto compact cassette (If you are the copyright people reading this, then, no, no I didn't). I would then put the cassettes in my portable stereo and listen to them on the way to geek school. If you were young in the 70s, 80s or early 90s, then it is likely that you did the same.

An actual compact cassette tape actually from back in the actual day

When compact cassettes became obsolete, I didn't miss them. By the mid 90s I had a growing collection CDs and a decent PC hooked into my stereo amplifier in place of a tape deck; and the transition to digital format was seamless, albeit, streaming had replaced recording from the radio.

Today, however,  I found myself doing what I once had always done, except instead of recording tunes from the FM radio onto compact cassette, I was listening on digital radio on my LaMetric Time device. And instead of compact cassette I am using the feature of Cortana on my phone to identify music and then head over to the Groove app to place them into a playlist.

Cortana at work on my Lumia 950

When I said that I don't miss compact cassettes, that is something of a lie. I do. I think that there is something intangible about music on cassette. There is a joy to using them akin to tinkering with a vintage car, or keeping a retro computer alive. It has something to do with the clunk click of the rewind mechanism, or the feel of a chunky plastic cassette in your hands, or maybe it was because you had to write the track listings on a piece of cardboard with a pen. Maybe it was this investment of effort that makes the format enjoyable. If someone gave you a mixtape back in the olden days, then it meant that they really liked you.

I have often considered buying a cassette player to relive my compact cassette days. Unfortunately, apart from a small revival movement amongst some genres of music, compact cassettes are not a viable storage medium beyond the sheer joy of operating them. I have encountered a couple of virtual cassette apps, but they really aren't the same. To the current date I have avoided taping digital radio onto virtual compact cassette, but it really is just a matter of time until I do!

Tape recorder for Windows Phone, available also for Windows 10, and yes, there are a load of cassette apps for Android devices as well, I've looked.

I am not sure what the future will bring. I am hoping for an embedded brain implant that - as soon as someone walks into the room - automatically plays their theme tune into my ear, and plays incidental music so I know when I am in peril.

I can dream.

Well, that's it for now. I will of course post the moment I get a new compact cassette player. Until then, you  might like to read about some more retro computing stuff, or, I don't know, perhaps you just find out your Starwars name or something.

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