If you have $90 to spend on one of the ties, and you are willing to sacrifice an old Walkman for the project, you can make this a fixture of your formal wardrobe. Of course, walking around with a broken Walkman asking every one to rub you with it is not recommended. [Supermarket via Gadget Lab]

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born. [Giz '79]

A $185 TSC-300 I bought from J&R, my Walkman was also a stereo recorder. (Note the spiffy name—even when it was clueful, Sony was clueless.) No way you could put it in your pocket—it was about the size of a trade paperback book. But the music sounded great, and it doubled as a very solid, if bulky, recorder for interviews.

Besides the Walkman, a real driver of cassettes, so to speak, was the car experience. Cassettes were a big improvement over the first personal car audio technology, 8-Tracks, which had to switch from one "track" to another every few minutes, and to accommodate this, labels would often rearrange the order of songs on an album, or even cut off a long song in the middle. (I once went cross-country in a Trans Am with an 8-track, and to this day every time I hear The Doors play "The End," my mind inserts an 8-second pause before Jim Morrison kills his dad and fucks his mom.)

As now, people had all kinds of exotic car-stereo rigs, but as an impoverished writer I outfitted my 1972 VW bug with a minimal unit (a no-name brand for $99) that I bolted under the dashboard and wired up to the speakers. Not pretty, but I could control what music I heard in the car, which was actually a novelty then.

The other big advantage of cassettes, of course, were that they were recordable. You'd buy blank 90-minute cassettes (chrome high bias, if you were an audio nut) and tape one album on each side. (Since most records were shorter than 45 minutes, you'd grab a song or two from another album to avoid a long dead spot before the tape reversed.) And you'd borrow albums from friends and tape your own. You could also tape from other cassettes, but the quality degraded each time you made a copy made from a copy. It was like an organic form of DRM. Everybody had a box with hand-labeled cassettes and before you went on a car trip you'd dig in the box to find the tunes that would soundtrack your journey.

Cassettes weren't the most reliable technology—it was pretty common for the music to stop and then, when you tried to eject, the player wouldn't give up the tape. You'd use brute force, and sticking out of the plastic would be a tangle of brown spaghetti. But even though audio cassettes supposedly degrade after 20 years or so, I still have a couple in my car that I made in the '70s—one of the early Stones, taped from the mono originals, and a Neil Young tape with "Tonight's the Night" on one side and "On the Beach" on the other. Neither has lost its magnetism, physically or psychically.

The cassette era was a big setup for the age of iPod, a pocket-size digital device that was not only a playback unit, but the equivalent of a room-size cardboard box full of tapes. And, of course, Napster, which made the whole world into a big cassette-tape-swapping community, where everything was free.

Steven Levy is a senior writer for Wired, most recently writing about Google's ad business and the secret of the CIA sculpture. He's written six books, including Hackers, Artificial Life and The Perfect Thing, about the iPod. In 1979, he had just left his first real job, at a regional magazine called New Jersey Monthly, to become a freelance writer, and had yet to touch a computer.

Photos of every blank tape ever at tapedeck.org

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.

The signal from the tape head is transmitted via FM radio to a receiver, which then records the glitchy sound of a robot dutifully following a strip of magnetized acetate. Future revisions will add remote-control. [Instructables via MAKE]

While Bill Gates was becoming a one-man megapower, Steve Jobs was getting lost in a sea of ego and suck, and Nelson Mandela was inspiring people across the globe, I was sitting by my cheap RCA CD/Tape boombox trying to get the hang of long division.

Most my school nights in the fourth grade were spent doing homework by my boombox listening to San Francisco hip-hop radio station KMEL when it was still great. Bay Area hip hop, top 40 hip hop, classic joints, R&B, whatever—they played good music back then. And I recorded it.

Like I mentioned in the tribute to boomboxes, it was all about timing when you made a real mixtape; tape had to be queued to the right place, you had to know just when to hit play (before the lyrics started, after the DJ stopped talking), and you had to pay attention so you could stop recording right as it ended.

My tapes of choice were the Memorex joints with the bright colors and geometric shapes. Classics. What I chose to put on those tapes wasn't always as classic, but the fact that I pulled it together to craft this one mix makes me proud of my younger self.

The best part was when we got to go on school field trips, because I not only got to pop my tape in my walkman to keep me entertained, but my friends had mixes and walkmans of their own. So we'd swap and share during the bus rides to wherever. Those were better days.

Back to my main point— the mix is filled with West Coast hip-hop from the era, but imbued with a splash of east coast and a touch of R&B. This is my handcrafted, childhood masterpiece. I'm sure, due to the faults of time, a couple songs are missing or mentally amalgamated in from other tapes. But the essence is more or less the same. Enjoy. (Photo courtesy of TapeDeck.org)

Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog - "Ain't Nuthin But a G-Thang":

The "1, 2, 3 and to tha 4" still gets me happy to this day.

Domino - "Ghetto Jam":

I had completely forgotten about this song until I started thinking about the mixtape again. When that happens, you realized it's a song that only could have come out of a given era.

Tevin Campbell - "Can We Talk":

Ok, maybe not as imposing as some other selections on this mix, BUT I WAS 9! And it's still a good song.

Snoop Doggy Dog - "Gin and Juice":

I have memories of sitting in my dad's car listening to this track: me rappin about endo, and gin, and money, my dad looking at me like I was a damn moron.

Dru Down - "Pimp of the Year":

A wise friend once said, "Dru Down sellin' bitches quick dreams here mane!" I concur.

E-40 featuring The Click, D-Shot, B-Legit and Suga T - "Captain Save A Hoe":

Worth it just for the line "Look up in the sky, it's a bird! It's a plane! What's dat fool name? CAPTAIN SAVE A HOE MAAAANE!"

Masta Ace - "Born To Roll":

I still don't know how Masta Ace was pulling west coast airplay back then, but I'm happy he was. I still find my self singing the chorus without even knowing it's from this song.

Aaliyah - "Back and Forth":

This song really deserved a spot on any 94-era mixtape.

Warren G and Nate Dogg - "Regulate":

Don't care what anyone says. This was THE song of 1994.

Rappin 4 Tay - "Players Club":

A mid-90s Bay Area gem.

Soul 4 Real - "Candy Rain":

This was the last track I added to that tape before it was time to move on. Not sure how I remember this being the very last, but I would like to know where I stashed that tape.

For those of you who know me, it shouldn't come as a surprise to know the very first CD I bought was the soundtrack to Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast. I was about 10 years old when I purchased the CD, but before that, I recorded my own cassette of it by holding an old boombox, with a double-tapedeck, up to the speakers through every single song of the movie.

I don't remember the gadgets I used to play them on, but from VHS to cassette to CD to digital download, I still listen to "Belle" at least once a week. It's true that living in my little magical bubble might make me a little detached from the real world, but you have to admit that this sparkly, yellow ball gown is so much more flattering on me than your wizard capes and crumpled up binder paper. Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!

For Gizmodo's week-long Listening Test (a tribute to all things audio), each writer will be sharing his/her first album. In other words, there will be many more to come.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

Album art used to be a serious pursuit, as if it was equally important to catch both the eyes and the ears of the music shopper. Perhaps, we don't need the allure of album art anymore, since we can instantly gratify our need to hear the music we want to buy or steal. But when I was growing up, it was vital.

Vinyl albums - The mama pajama of album art came from the cardboard, paper and sometimes tissue wrapping around and within 33rpm records. A favorite of mine was Prince's Purple Rain, because the lyrics were printed on the outside for easy sing-along access. ("Ain't gonna let the elevator break us down, oh no, let's go!") More often, lyrics would be found on that easily torn inner sleeve. The best album covers were the ones that opened, with a booklet of photos and lyrics inside. That was the jackpot.

45s, which I actually bought quite a few of in the early to mid 1980s (cuz they were cheap and I was a kid), they usually came in almost no protection at all, just a thin paper wrapper with a hole in the middle to see what was what. The way you could tell the best 45s was, a full-color photograph covered the whole glossy envelope—and there was no hole.

Memorable records:
• Queen - Flash Gordon Original Soundtrack
• Weird Al Yankovic - In 3D
• Pat Benatar "Love Is a Battlefield" 45

Cassettes - This was a dark time for album art and music packaging. Cassettes were frickin' ugly, especially those standardized ones released by Columbia Records, with the red block lettering on the side, and like zero information within. Sealed tight with cellophane, we were first introduced to the concept of needing tools to open our own music. (Though the really cool record collectors sliced open the easily torn plastic wrap, to protect the art within, I always thought of that as the equivalent of Granny covering her couch with plastic.)

As cassettes dominated vinyl, labels put more info into the packs, so that you'd get a piece of paper folded 97 times, out into this long thing. That was it for tape evolution, though—a frickin' long long piece of paper with tiny photos and even tinier lyrics. Folding it back in took origami ninja skill that I didn't have.

I enjoyed cassette singles (or "cassingles") because they were cheap, and only had the songs I cared about. Still, they came in a sleeve that was open at both ends, so the damn tape would always fall out.

Memorable cassettes:
• Steve Winwood - Roll With It
• Hall and Oates - H2O
• Prince - "Alphabet Street" cassette single

CDs - They actually started shipping in long rectangular boxes, so they'd take up exactly 50% of the rack space of a vinyl album. I think this was on purpose, so record stores didn't have to retool their shelving. The upside was lots of surface area for cover art, and the early days of the CD were like a return of album art. These long skinny boxes had huge busts of Jim Morrison, huge prints of the famed Zeppelin explosion that launched a band into stardom. The boxes were also wrapped in easy-to-tear plastic, so getting into your CD, though it took a few steps, was pretty easy.

But then the green freaks got their way, and the cardboard boxes were discontinued. Jewel boxes—and their never-too-popular "eco pac" brethren—just got thicker and thicker booklets, and more and more digital features. Worse, they came increasingly hard to open, to the point where record stores literally started selling specialized tools to open CDs. That's just wrong, but nothing is more wrong than the mercifully short-lived "dogbone" security wrapper, that scarred your jewel box for life.

Memorable CDs:
• Don Dorsey - Beethoven or Bust
• Paul Simon - Graceland
• Dire Straits - Communique

Digital downloads - And so we reach nothing. Not totally nothing, as it seems like every album still requires a 6-inch square illustration to validate its existence. But there's no series of photos, long lists of musicians and instruments and lyrics and writing credits. We're doing with less and less in the way of local information about our recordings—those booklets that told us who played sax on tracks 2, 3 and 7, they're disappearing. We can use the web to gather specifics when really necessary, but label-controlled artist websites really don't help. Some bands put out those digital booklets, but not many. And as far as track metadata, the details are scant. And the gratification is so quick, I almost yearn for the days when I needed a special knife to cut into my new CD.

Memorable downloads:
• Jack Johnson - On and On (first time I skipped the CD)
• David Gray - Life in Slow Motion (first "digital booklet")

I came across this excellent site, the Album Art Exchange, when thinking about this subject. If you want to get a sense of the history and the elaborate nature of album art dating back to the 1960s, I suggest you hop on over.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

For me it was Richard Marx's Repeat Offender on cassette, which I ordered from one of those music catalog deals. It was one of the few cassettes I actually bought, since even back then, I used to pirate music by taping songs off the radio. I'm sure that tape is long gone, but the memories—oh the memories—will remain forever.

I think maybe half the tracks on there were good, with the other half being serviceable. Which is why being able to buy individual tracks now would have blown me away back in the '80s.

For Gizmodo's week-long Listening Test (a tribute to all things audio), each writer will be sharing his/her first album. In other words, there will be many more to come.

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

From Wikipedia:

Magnetic tape revolutionized the broadcast and recording industries. In an age when all radio (and later television) was live, it allowed programming to be prerecorded. In a time when gramophone records were recorded in one take, it allowed recordings to be created in multiple stages and easily mixed and edited with a minimal loss in quality between generations. It is also one of the key enabling technologies in the development of modern computers. Magnetic tape allowed massive amounts of data to be stored in computers for long periods of time and rapidly accessed when needed.

[Top Photo Courtesy of Phil Aaronson]

But more seriously, this is a pretty ingenious use of older gadget-y materials to make something inspiring and new. There's also a Bob Dylan, as well as a Marilyn Monroe made from an old movie reel. Says the artist:

I am an artist who specializes in using non traditional media… old books, cassettes, playing cards, magazines, credit cards… whatever I can find. It feels great to work with strange, older materials. Things that have a mind of their own. Most everything I use has been thrown away or donated at some point. Past its prime, like some of the finest things in the world.

Next up: Building a likeness of Steve Jobs from a pile of discarded original Apple iPods. [Ghost in the Machine via Neatorama]

The JVC player was probably only ever intended to service old, supplementary collections of tapes, but my romantic side hopes that at least one person will see this news and think "Aww, shucks, I guess it's finally.time to get one of those Dee-Vee-Dee players." As a comfort to those people, JVC (like others) will continue to offer a few combination players, and at least plans on selling its standalone VCRs until inventory runs out. [TradingMarkets via BBG]

In your heyday, people rocked out to your not-so-dulcet tones, unwitting grunge parents produced little grunge babies to the soundtrack of your sweet hisses, and relationships and restraining orders alike were borne of compilations carefully mixed onto your glossy insides. Now you're silenced, screwed into the shape of a cabinet and put up for sale on the same "Internet" that did such horrible things to your children. Such is the way of the world, Tape. And let's be honest — as much as you don't want to hear it, this is the coolest you've looked in years. [CreativeBarn]

Apparently so. Weezy's "Tha Carter III," Usher's "Here I Stand" and Mariah Carey's "E=MC2" are all among Pack Central's current best selling tapes. If you're man enough to rock the new Mariah Carey on cassette in the slammer, my hat's off to you—I only feel comfortable singling you out from the safe confines of the internet.

Anyway, CDs are apparently too easy to splinter into a shiv (for disciplining the dude who laughed at your Mariah tapes), and the company even has to remove the metal screws from their tapes before shipping them out to get by the screeners (you guys make a good point below, though—I guess the cassette shivs are not as worrisome). The guy who keeps all those 20-year-old Walkmen in operating condition must be swimming in bartered cigarettes. [NYTimes, image tapedeck.org]

During the two decades that I've had my components, I've run the gamut from vinyl to cassette and CD, and all the way back again. The black boxes are part of my life, they've stoked parties, soaked up miserable tears, impressing and depressing the menfolk in my life. I've sawed antique walnut cabinets to pieces in order to accommodate multi-plugs, connectors and dust covers and now all I rely on is a little white fag-packet-sized box that stores more music than I could ever hope to accumulate.

How many times have you bought the same album? I've got multiple formats for quite a few, but here's a perfect example: I spent a year in France as a teenager and, having just a Walkman and portable speakers for company, bought myself Mlah by Les Negresses Vertes. A couple of years later, when I was deep into the house scene in Paris, and running a music fanzine, I persuaded their record label to give me the 12" of Zobi La Mouche. Nice buggers that they are, they threw in the album on vinyl, too. A few years later, and I went to Madrid for the first time, I found the CD on special offer in a record store and, having only my laptop for company, snapped it up.

Several years—and moves—later, I get my first iPod. Easy peasy, I think, as I sit down with a pile of CDs to rip. Mlah? Meh. According to my laptop, the disc was unreadable. It was time to open up an iTunes account. Sleazy teasy record labels, more like. Call me a fool, but I've acquired Mlah FOUR TIMES OVER. How many more formats can the record companies come up with? Hologram disco MP3s? Dubbly sound that goes to Eleven? Free horse and cart when you purchase the high-quality, 4-swazillion-kbps version? Even the tracks I've ripped may already be obsolete. To quote Johnny Rotten, "Ever get the feeling you've been had?"

It's Thursday afternoon and, as I lie on my bed and type this, one of the movers is transferring my clothes into one of those hanging boxes. I reckon I've got about 20 minutes to decide whether my boxed-up Denon tape deck, Technics amp and turntable, NAD CD player and KEF speakers make into the van marked "Blighty." It is, however, a bit of a no-brainer. How could I abandon those stalwarts of my life, passé though they may be, in favor of a simpler system whose audio quality isn't exactly fabulous?

Perhaps the clincher, though, is that my iPod is currently filed under B for busticated. Into the van my components go, then. Whether they ever come out of their boxes again is another story.

That's what I love these recycled cassette wallets so much. More a wallet for your purse rather than a wallet for your back pocket, the cassette wallets are handmade little pouches that can hold things like money, credit cards and memories. They're $43 a pop, which is a lot for a cassette, but just consider it the last money you'll ever spend on this dead format. –Adam Frucci

Product Page [via TreeHugger]

Alpha Geek: How to digitize cassette tapes [Lifehacker]