project C-90 is an online museum of images of cassette tapes. I didn't THINK this would get me so excited, until I stumbled onto images like the one at the right, sending me back to forgotten early childhood memories of making little home radio shows on my portable tape recorder, taking apart and unravelling the cassettes, and marvelling over how quickly the audio quality deteriorated in such a distinct way.
Enjoy the cassette pr0n!
(Thanks to Soviet listener Andrei for the link)
oh w0w!
now this is aught.
wonder if there'll ever be a Wreckless Eric follow-up to "33s and 45s" along the lines of "SA 60s and D-C90s"?
Posted by: Zach in Philly | May 04, 2005 at 04:33 PM
Its all about making those mix tapes on a Maxell XLII 100.
Posted by: bruce | May 04, 2005 at 06:26 PM
Wow!! Very cool! I remember so many of these brands and specific tapes and lengths.
Posted by: Gazoo | May 05, 2005 at 12:06 AM
Nostalgia! Looking through project C-90's gallery was quite inspiring. I posted my thoughts on the beloved audio cassette here:
http://sambot.com/2005/05/remembering-old-friend.html
Here's an excerpt:
"Yep. The Fuji JP-II. I made a mix on that tape for a girl (what was her name?) that I had a monstrous high school crush on. I think I titled the mix, 'Songs that make me think of you' or something equally as lame. As I recall, it was filled to the brim with the likes of Suicidal Tendencies, Anthrax, Iron Maiden, probably some Cannibal Corpse thrown in there for good measure... in retrospect, I might have liked to have thought through my musical selections prior to adhering them to a mix tape whose very creation was intended to instill a sense of romance within the recipient... don't get me wrong, nothing is more romantic than Maiden's 'Die With Your Boots On,' but... nevermind."
Thanks!
Posted by: Sam | May 05, 2005 at 11:17 AM
The TDK cassette photo above is for me something akin to the sled in Citizen Kane. My entire existence during the years 1979-1993 came flooding back like the hot kiss on the end of a wet kiss.
One brand was missing, though: DAK. Was I the only idiot that read the DAK catalogue cover to cover, with its delightfully informal product descriptions and sales pitches from Drew Allen Kapp himself. I must have bought 3 or 4 10 packs of the DAK cassettes, convinced by Drew's spiel that despite their ugliness, they were infinitely superior in durability and signal-to-noise ratio to Maxell and TDK (so important when one is taping songs off WABC on a Radio Shack AM "Flavor Radio" via condenser mike.
Any other DAK catalogue fans out there?
Posted by: Fatherflot | May 05, 2005 at 06:17 PM
"like the hot kiss on the end of a wet fist" that is. . .
Posted by: Fatherflot | May 05, 2005 at 06:18 PM
Sorry, had the name wrong. It was Drew Kaplan. And he's got a website! http://www.dak.com/
Posted by: Fatherflot | May 05, 2005 at 06:19 PM
Missing in action from the TDK page: the C-180! I think I still have one in some box or other.
Posted by: Sporkadelic | May 05, 2005 at 07:29 PM
Great. This inspired to me to create a blog that documents people's personal histories through cassette tapes.
*save the cassette*
http://cassetiquette.blogspot.com
Submit yours today!
Posted by: cassetiquette | June 06, 2005 at 02:35 PM
More cassette tape pr0n!
Posted by: Kenzo (lastever.org / kenzodb.com) | November 01, 2005 at 01:24 PM
My oldest brother was so selfish, that he wouldn't let any of us younger brothers touch his huge vinyl collection. Bang, the school holidays were on, and my oldest brother would be off at work. Me and my younger brother would then be raiding his vinyl collection, taping as much as we could, before he came home. THANK GOD FOR THE MAXELL UD 90 TAPE!!!
Oh god, geees man, time machine stuff, or just pure time capsule magic. I remember being totally strict with what tape I used during the 1980's, and it was either the Maxell UD 90 or the TDK SA-X 90, and I looked after my equipment like that crop of gold under fort knox. I remember the days when cassette companies made their tapes at the highest standards possible. I cleaned the heads to my Philips D8514, recorded over a hundred tapes, and they would not be one speckle of dirt or dust on the heads. The manufacturing of Maxell tapes was so good in those days, that head cleaning was a very rare thing. This was unless your grand-father played his old BASF LH-I C60, Pat Boone tape. The cassette deck then would be totally screwed as the heads were covered with some dirty coating from that company's tapes. Now cassette companies have dropped their standards, in reaction to the rise of CD-R. Cassettes now-a-days are made of very cheap material and sound crap.
Posted by: Christopher | March 04, 2006 at 10:40 PM
http://www.c-90.org
Project c-90 returns with some improvements.
haplishe
Posted by: haplishe | July 03, 2008 at 02:55 PM