Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Cassette Tapes

11 (18%)

Video Cassette

8 (13.1%)

Minidiscs

3 (4.9%)

Laserdisc

3 (4.9%)

Betamax

6 (9.8%)

Vinyl

18 (29.5%)

Stone tablets

5 (8.2%)

Ug banging on a rotted tree log with two sticks

7 (11.5%)

Total Members Voted: 55

[TheEvilDog]

Comic's up and its a wave of nostalgia for media of yesteryear.

And some shortlived ones at that....

[SpanielBear]

Went for cassette, as that was what I really grew up with. My dad had some decent vinyls though.

I wonder if Emily is actually the nexus of a conduit for paralell universes. Her dreams are of realities that never came to be.

[shanejayell]

I remember getting Videotapes.

Tho really you should have multiple options... 

[TheEvilDog]

Hmmm, no.

One should be enough because there's always something you remember more from your youth than anything else. I remember cassettes just from how much music I was exposed to as a kid.

[SmilingCat]

I remember Vinyl, from back in the day when we just called them records, ye darn kids! *shakes cane*.

The smothers brothers records we had were old friends of mine...

Emily weirdly speaks to me here. Though I'm usually able to sort my dreams from reality shortly after I wake up.

[SomeCanadianWeirdo]

Don't worry, Emily.  Lots of stuff has never made it to YouTube, so cyberdiscs may have existed.

[Penquin47]

Don't worry, Emily.  Lots of stuff has never made it to YouTube, so cyberdiscs may have existed.

Probably not, though - being oblong would make it really awkward to read.  There's a reason discs are circular.

[cesium133]

Don't worry, Emily.  Lots of stuff has never made it to YouTube, so cyberdiscs may have existed.

Probably not, though - being oblong would make it really awkward to read.  There's a reason discs are circular.

Something something *physicist mumbles* moment of inertia something something violent explosion.

[Loki]

Hmmm, no.

One should be enough because there's always something you remember more from your youth than anything else. I remember cassettes just from how much music I was exposed to as a kid.

Yes, but... my parents had a lot of music on vinyl. Growing up, my music (or rather, the subset of their music I enjoyed) were on cassettes,  whereas I recorded my favorite video shows on VHS. (And in one very memorable case, the Ninth Gate, which included boobs.)

I skipped right over everything else.

Regarding the comic: I would honestly be not surprised if it turned out that this was a media format that was brought to Emily by aliens or a Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency.

[BenRG]

I'm actually empathising with Emily this morning. Once, I had a detailed dream about a wholly-imaginary book in Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern series. It was so detailed (including a very interesting dust cover picture) that I was quite convinced it was real for a few days, leading to a considerable fruitless period at my local library, looking for it in the catalogue database.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that 'Pretty, Pretty Unicorn Detective' is a reference to the character 'Shadow Spade' in the My Little Pony episode Rarity Investigates!

Now, I find myself wondering about just how much of Emily's own memories of the past are false memories!

[OldGoat]

It wasn't really stone tablets.   My parents had a Philco 78 rpm phonograph, steel needle and all, and a bunch of pre-vinyl shelack records.  The things were brittle as hell and would shatter with scarcely any provocation.  The first LP machine in the house was a Webcor portable with a two-sided stylus,  steel for 78s and diamond for vinyl 33s, 45s, and 16s (never have seen a 16 in the flesh to this day).

[zmeiat_joro]

I grew up on renting VHC too. And I once saw a laserdisc of Dune (the David Lynch film) in a vintage store 15 years ago. Still a bit bummed I did not buy it. I still have my VHC home record it did of it off TV.

[anahata]

The first LP machine in the house was a Webcor portable with a two-sided stylus,  steel for 78s and diamond for vinyl 33s, 45s, and 16s (never have seen a 16 in the flesh to this day).

Neither have I, but I was told the 16RPM discs were for talking books for the blind.
Which makes sense, sacrificing frequency range for speech-only playing time.

[Stoutfellow]

I don't think we had any 16s (although I'm pretty sure I saw one once), but my little record player had a 16 setting. I played an Alvin and the Chipmunks on it once. David Seville was incomprehensible, but the Chipmunks were a nice tenor trio (singing rather slowly).

[Cornelius]

I went with betamax. My first, and probably favourite childhood video was betamax, even if all others were vhs. I still remember the day my father brought a video recorder home. Before that, it was audio cassettes, and vinyls. Although the last couple of albums I've bought, were on vinyl again. When it comes to music, vinyl or cd.
I've also gotten and repaired two gramophones, and some 78's. I just wish my grandma hasn't thrown here away as old fashioned junk.
I've entirely missed laser disc.

[Case]

Hmmm, no.

One should be enough because there's always something you remember more from your youth than anything else. I remember cassettes just from how much music I was exposed to as a kid.

I remember cassettes both for the beautiful practise of making mix-tapes as gifts for your friends (and/or sweetheart), as well as a digital (non-audio) data storage device.

(During the height of the C64-hype in the mid-80s, Commodore would sell a cassette-drive that used regular tapes for external data-storage, the "datasette", as a substitute for the more expensive 1541 Floppy-disk drives (5Ľ").)




Do Kids today do something like that still? Do they send each other playlists as a token of affection?

I still remember the day my father brought a video recorder home. Before that, it was audio cassettes, and vinyls.

Me, too - though our first one used the Video 2000 format. And from then on, I was the one who held the mythical and powerful office of "Family Master of Recordings", since none of the others ever bothered to learn how to program the damn' things. 

[shanejayell]

There was also a weird CD Rom format for anime that failed, that might  be what Emily is remembering.

[DaiJB]

What? No wax cylinders??   

You know what? I think Emily knows exactly how cyberdiscs work - I think she had something to do with the actual R&D - and something weird started happening when they tested the prototype and a secret government organization shut down the research and neuralyzed the researchers when the cracks in reality started appearing...   

[Tova]

(During the height of the C64-hype in the mid-80s, Commodore would sell a cassette-drive that used regular tapes for external data-storage, the "datasette", as a substitute for the more expensive 1541 Floppy-disk drives (5Ľ").)

Ahhh those were the days.

(Warning: flashing image)

(click to show/hide)

wheeeee

[anahata]

We still have a shelf full of VHS videos at home, and a VHS player that still works.
I was also a big fan of minidisc in its time.

I was quite shocked yesterday to discover that the 2018 Nissan LEAF doesn't have a CD player at all. For all I know, no new cars have CD players any more. And I have hundreds of CDs...

[War-Wren]

Cyberdiscs never gained popularity due to their terrible tendency to explode violently when dropped, taking out nearby bystanders, buildings, and petrol stations, thereby creating an explosive chain reaction that wipes out half your team... wait, what are we talking about again?

[Near Lurker]

...I'm genuinely starting to think Emily needs help.

[BenRG]

There's no doubt that Emily has a semi-detached relationship with objective reality. However, she seems to be broadly aware of this, so this reduces somewhat the degree of risk posed to herself and others. However, yes, she is a person who is always going to be much safer with friends to act as a 'second opinion' of her perceptions and memories.

[efindumb]

The first LP machine in the house was a Webcor portable with a two-sided stylus,  steel for 78s and diamond for vinyl 33s, 45s, and 16s (never have seen a 16 in the flesh to this day).

Neither have I, but I was told the 16RPM discs were for talking books for the blind.
Which makes sense, sacrificing frequency range for speech-only playing time.

According to this link you are right but it's also  because of radio stations and their usage that they were created. When they went with a different, newer format that fit their needs better the format died out so there wasn't any need for the 16s anymore especially for such a niche market. Why continue to make something that has limited us, a limited market, and can be done just as well with other, cheaper technology?




On topic: I really felt old when my niece asked what a cassette tape was a few years ago! She dug the knife in further when she asked what a videotape was and why the minivan had a VCR instead of a DVD player...

[Jeemy]

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that 'Pretty, Pretty Unicorn Detective' is a reference to the character 'Shadow Spade' in the My Little Pony episode Rarity Investigates!

Or possibly Pretty Pretty Pegasus in Teen Titans. My kids watch this and I remembered an episode where the ladywizard wants to sit at home and watch their equivalent of 'my little pony'. So I googled it and its pretty close too?

[Pilchard123]

Cyberdiscs never gained popularity due to their terrible tendency to explode violently when dropped, taking out nearby bystanders, buildings, and petrol stations, thereby creating an explosive chain reaction that wipes out half your team... wait, what are we talking about again?

"We've yet to recover one of these in functional condition from the field - the men seem to enjoy using them for target practice."

[Zebediah]

Cyberdiscs. A real thing, for certain loosely defined values of “real”.

[pwhodges]

I selected "Stone tablets" as there was no closer option for the shellac 78rpm disks I gained my first experience with...

I had this, for instance.

[OldGoat]

There's no doubt that Emily has a semi-detached relationship with objective reality. However, she seems to be broadly aware of this, so this reduces somewhat the degree of risk posed to herself and others. However, yes, she is a person who is always going to be much safer with friends to act as a 'second opinion' of her perceptions and memories.

I beg to differ.  Emily does not suffer from a semi-detached relationship with objective reality. 

In fact, she rather enjoys it.

[JoeCovenant]

It wasn't really stone tablets.   My parents had a Philco 78 rpm phonograph, steel needle and all, and a bunch of pre-vinyl shelack records.  The things were brittle as hell and would shatter with scarcely any provocation.  The first LP machine in the house was a Webcor portable with a two-sided stylus,  steel for 78s and diamond for vinyl 33s, 45s, and 16s (never have seen a 16 in the flesh to this day).

Yep,
We had an old 78 player and a nice pile of discs too which my parents 'inherited' from my grandparents.
I used to play the hell out of those old discs!

[ckridge]

The bottom says "Xcom joke." Help? This is not my field of geekery.

[OldGoat]

It wasn't really stone tablets.   My parents had a Philco 78 rpm phonograph, steel needle and all, and a bunch of pre-vinyl shelack records.  The things were brittle as hell and would shatter with scarcely any provocation.  The first LP machine in the house was a Webcor portable with a two-sided stylus,  steel for 78s and diamond for vinyl 33s, 45s, and 16s (never have seen a 16 in the flesh to this day).

Yep,
We had an old 78 player and a nice pile of discs too which my parents 'inherited' from my grandparents.
I used to play the hell out of those old discs!

Here's one my folks had.  (If that fellow's voice sounds familiar, it's Mel "Bug Bunny and a bunch of others" Blanc.)

The collection wasn't just goofy stuff, either.  I remember a bunch of Strauss Waltzes and other classical stuff, too.  (Did they have green labels?  That was a long time ago, and they were old then.)

[BenRG]

The bottom says "Xcom joke." Help? This is not my field of geekery.

XCom, first published in the early 1990s as UFO - Enemy Unknown is a turn-based strategy game where you command a UN task-force that is attempting to repel an overt alien invasion of a contemporary Earth, a task complicated by the activities of a secretive cult trying to exploit the war to increase their own power. 'Cyberdisc' is the identifying name of an alien tank-like combat drone used in the latter phases of the game.

[Pennepasta]

The bottom says "Xcom joke." Help? This is not my field of geekery.

XCom, first published in the early 1990s as UFO - Enemy Unknown is a turn-based strategy game where you command a UN task-force that is attempting to repel an overt alien invasion of a contemporary Earth, a task complicated by the activities of a secretive cult trying to exploit the war to increase their own power. 'Cyberdisc' is the identifying name of an alien tank-like combat drone used in the latter phases of the game.

I believe it was called XCom in the US, even the original? Being a Brit, though, I just had UFO: EU. The classic game of moving soldiers out of the dropship to get mown down one by one before they could do anything.

[Pilchard123]

And there's some remakes/sequels/spiritual successors released in 2012 and 2016. I haven't played the originals myself, so I can't really compare them to the new ones, but they're pretty good. Julian Gollop, who made the original ones is also working on Phoenix Point, which smells a bit like it's in the middle of the two.

I believe it was called XCom in the US, even the original?

X-COM, with a hyphen. I don't exactly know why it was decided that the hyphen should be removed, but searching for XCOM will get you the modern ones and X-COM will get the old ones.

[hedgie]

Odd.  I'm increasingly thinking of removing the optical drive on my laptop and doing one of those conversions to stick an SSD in there.

[Sebastian]

That's a pity, I'd watch something called "witch planet soccer" I imagine like a an anime where kids play a game similiar to soccer but with magic spells, kinda like a mix between imazuna eleven and fairy tail.

[Is it cold in here?]

...I'm genuinely starting to think Emily needs help.

Freud's definition of mental health was the ability to love and to work. She clears that bar.

[Zebediah]

Well, I did once see one episode of an anime about a kid’s soccer team that was on a spaceship that looked like a train, and some of the kids had magic and one was green with elf ears. No idea what the title was. It was on Spanish TV so it was dubbed in Spanish and I had no clue what was going on.

[ckridge]

Freud's definition of mental health was the ability to love and to work. She clears that bar.

Man, I like that definition. You can see how that guy would have unwarranted confidence in his stupid ideas. When he was on, he was on all the way.

Usually when I meet someone with Emily's kind of buoyant, giddy happiness, I start watching to see what the depressive cycle looks like, but there is no sign of that here. Could be she is just odd, and no one has gone out of there way to make her miserable about it. I've never seen that happen, but it must be possible.

[Case]

...I'm genuinely starting to think Emily needs help.

Freud's definition of mental health was the ability to love and to work. She clears that bar.

IIRC, Adolf Eichmann was assessed by five psychiatrists prior to his trial in Jerusalem, none of whom found anything out of the ordinary.

Normal is a majority vote. 

[ckridge]

They were not going to arrive at a verdict that might interfere with killing him.

I wonder whether he was capable of love. Probably, under a special, restricted set of circumstances.

[Sullivan]

We still have a shelf full of VHS videos at home, and a VHS player that still works.
I was also a big fan of minidisc in its time.

I was quite shocked yesterday to discover that the 2018 Nissan LEAF doesn't have a CD player at all. For all I know, no new cars have CD players any more. And I have hundreds of CDs...

Automakers have also talked about getting rid of the radio. 

[TheEvilDog]

That's largely due to smartphones. Why have a radio in the car when someone is going to connect their phone to their car, after all its got Youtube, the owner's own music and of course a radio if needs be.

[Sullivan]

That's largely due to smartphones. Why have a radio in the car when someone is going to connect their phone to their car, after all its got Youtube, the owner's own music and of course a radio if needs be.

So many reasons...

- There are many places in the US where mobile phone coverage isn't good enough to provide good streaming audio.
- OTA radio is not subject to data caps.
- Terrestrial radio pays lower royalties than online "stations", so the former are more viable as business entities.
- I have Sirius XM in the car. But NPR's premium  newscasts (ME and ATC) aren't on Sirius XM.
- OTA stations are located in specific places and have social and financial connections to those places. If they havent been taken over by iHeart they may have a local "lean" on their playlist that might let me hear something I wouldn't otherwise. Internet streaming "stations" don't do that.
- Many local stations do have online feeds. But just try finding one when you're in a strange city. There is no consistency or pattern to their URLs and I can't find an app that gives me a "scan up" button for searching for streams of local stations for wherever I happen to be. With the car radio I have a steering wheel button to do that. (And there is an "NPR station finder" app on my phone... it doesn't link me to their feeds, though!)

[Tova]

I am a fan of CDs and still buy them, but I have a cd player in the car and I almost never use it. I could count on one hand the number of times I've stuck a CD in there, and I've had the car for about fifteen years.

As for VHS, I recently saw blu rays for sale in commemorative VHS cases, so it's safe to say that a fair number of people 'remember' them, even if they weren't around at the time.

It reminds of the time when a once heard a conductor use the phrase "broken record" in front of a youth orchestra.

Conductor: "You probably don't know what that mea-"
The entire youth orchestra: "WE KNOW WHAT IT MEANS."

[Neko_Ali]

...I'm genuinely starting to think Emily needs help.

Freud's definition of mental health was the ability to love and to work. She clears that bar.

I'm a butcher and I love my work. The fact that I practice on humans is irrelevant.

[SmilingCat]

Freud's definition of mental health was the ability to love and to work. She clears that bar.

Freud also thought Cocaine was pretty great. I like to imagine our understanding of health and well being has expanded a bit since then.

[JRDelirio]

Emily has previously stated that she is deep weird.


As to media, heck, where's 8-track in the poll? 

When my car CD changer began acting up about 4 years ago I switched to hooking my Nano(*) to the AUX input, never looked back.
(* You'll take my dedicated media player when you pry... you know the drill.  That thing's battery outlasts my iPhone's by 4 to one)

[Perfectly Reasonable]

Google is my friend:

"... a planet inhabited by athletic witches who practice sports magic and vie to place their sport at the top to decide the world's shape..."

Round or oblong?