Who still uses old media/technology?

[AziMWolf]

I don't know about most here, especially those under a certain age.

But I love to use "old" mediums, and technology. Such as audio tapes, for recording on the spot, from the radio, mp3, etc.....

I also recently re-incorporated a VCR into my entertainment system.

There is just something to be said for instant record-able medium.

This day and age has music right at our finger tips, and alot of radio shows podcast.

But say a new song is on the radio, no single is released to any media consumption site, yet you want to hear it over again.

You MIGHT be able to use the Tune-In app on your smartphone and record the song/show. Then however it's locked there.

So what then?

I found using cassette tapes to be the answer. If you use a high quality, serviced machine, and good tapes, you can get a copy of your source in the highest quality possible. Perhaps succeeding CD, or MP3.

Same for video. Now, most people have DVRs, and DVD Recorders. So it IS quicker to record shows to the DVR, then copy them to DVD.

But I still love the feel of putting a VHS tape into a machine, and pressing record.

Plus how many DVDs do you have that have not either gotten massively scratched, or rotted away?

I know I am not alone in my endeavors. But I wondered who is with me, using analog or at-least alternative storage mediums to capture audio and or audio/video?

Lee

[Aethy]

I remember recording all my music to play while on trips or going to school onto cassettes straight from the radio, taking an evening to listen and repeatedly press record and stop to avoid recording commercial breaks. There's little snips of speech in each where I didn't hit stop quite fast enough. And the DJ mixes on some radio shows! Can't get copies of those anywhere, because the shows are live and unique each day. Cassettes provided!

We still use VHS here all the time, and I've definitely found they do last longer than our DVDs have, but perhaps that's coincidence.

All my belongings are packed up right now though, so anything bulky, like analog, has fled from my life to accommodate my tiny living space. I do like analog sticking around.

[Kisota]

I have two old Mac computers in my basement right now that I want to fix up. One is a Performa from the first half of the 90s! It actually worked perfectly when I fired it up. I had time to play some Mario Teaches Typing and re-record some cute childhood audio to my phone before the CRT crapped out. Gonna see if I can get the data off the hard drive, and then either find a way to hook up another screen to the computer , or emulate the machine itself.

And I've got an iMac G3 from 2001. It needs a new hard drive, but other than that, is mostly in working condition. I'm hoping to get that one up and running for some retro gaming. :]

I wish I had a cassette player around. I do have some cassettes. At my dad's house, I often watch old videos on VHS, listen to vinyl, and so on and so forth.

Most of the time I find modern technology more handy, but the pure nostalgia of the old stuff is enjoyable. And sometimes there are benefits - vinyl has a unique sound, and playing old computer games on a native OS is easier than emulating.

[R Swan]

I use cassette tapes. I have always used cassette tapes. It's not [to me] a matter of «old» or «vintage» or similar hipster nonsense. It's a matter of the particular distortion magnetic tape adds to the sound being pleasant to my ears, probably because I have spent my whole life with it. There's a certain quality to the sound of analog magnetic tape that cannot be simulated. The distortion is capable of making even «empty» mixes sound fuller somehow.

For regular listening, sharing my own stuff, and sinfully applying tape effects [to digital recordings], I use regular Type I tapes. I know places to buy empty custom length tapes in bulk. I use Type IV and Type II cassettes (with Dolby B) as archive storage of all my studio recordings. I also have tapes of nearly every item in my music collection (alongside vinyl and CD copies) because I prefer the sound of tape to other media. I collect vinyls because of a long-standing paranoia of EMP weapons (vinyls, being made of non-conductive plastic, would be the only music-bearing media to survive). For recording (and playing) I use a set of twin Denon DRM-800 machines and a Marantz PMD-430 portable. I am at some point going to get hold of a WM-D6C for field recordings as the PMD-430, while stellar in sound quality, is rather cumbersome and increasingly cantankerous with age.

[AziMWolf]

I just never stopped using audio cassette media. I never used it in digital mode. Just analog. I use Type II, I don't use Dolby B, because it may lower the noise floor, it lowers the mids and highs. So I accept the tape as is. I might one day get a recorder/player that can play Cr-O2, or Metal tape.

But for me nothing is more satisfying as using analog tape medium.

It might be part nostalgia, but it's also because there is no other way. Especially one that gives the same level of quality one gets from a pure analog source.

Lee

[micheal65536]

I use floppy disks (3 1/2 inch, not 5 1/4 inch, for anyone who knows the difference). Mostly for vintage stuff, I've got a few old computers around that I like to play old games on and mess around with MS-DOS, OS/2, and early versions of Windows (and whatever other 90s operating systems I might come across). Also used to use them to run my vintage Mac from after the hard drive failed, before I got a replacement hard drive.

But it's not just for vintage stuff though. The other day I was testing an Android app that I was developing. I needed to test how the app would behave on Android 4.x. So I booted Android on my laptop (yes, you can run Android on a laptop), copied the app to a floppy disk, plugged the USB floppy disk drive into the laptop, and installed the app directly from floppy disk!

Other than floppy disks, I still use older media formats that are free of DRM. As a Linux/open source user, DVDs are really the most advanced media storage format I can use (technically illegally since it requires breaking copy protection... not that anyone cares about the copy protection on DVDs anymore). BluRays are useless to me, as are DVRs. I get music from CD or YouTube; I can't play music bought online.

I've also used cassette tape when I needed to play an audio track on the outdated HiFi system in the living room. I used to use cassettes for mastering my song recordings, but I got frustrated with the amount of hiss so I've changed to recording directly into a computer (don't know why I didn't do that before...). Cassettes are still great though when one needs to play a track once or twice and then forget about it - they're portable, easy to use (no need to worry about what file formats each device can support - if it's got a cassette drive it can play the cassette), and easy to re-record on.

[hotdogwolf]

I still use and play old 1980s and 90s video games and I still have 80s and 90s video game consoles. Some of what I got is a 1980s Magnavox game console, Atari, Nes, N64, saga Genesis, Play station, and play station 2. Some of my games still work and some don't but I keep them around because there now consider history. I don't consider such old video game technology obsolete.

[micheal65536]

I still use and play old 1980s and 90s video games and I still have 80s and 90s video game consoles. Some of what I got is a 1980s Magnavox game console, Atari, Nes, N64, saga Genesis, Play station, and play station 2. Some of my games still work and some don't but I keep them around because there now consider history. I don't consider such old video game technology obsolete.

That's a nice collection of consoles there. I wish I had some vintage consoles tbh, particularly a GameBoy and an NES with some of the more popular games.

[Anuolf]

I still have all my original DVDs, none of them are scratched [at least not to the point of being unplayable] and it will take centuries before DVDs actually start "rotting" away. Most likely, the plastics would degrade to a point where it makes it unable to be played normally. They've predicted that DVD technology will withstand up to 300 or so years. With that, I still have all my original Playstation 1 and 2 discs, same with GameCube discs. I even have CDs even older than that still kicking around. All of which I use pretty regularly [well, as regularly as I can watch movies or play old disc games]. I also have NES, SNES, N64, Gameboy Original, and GameBoy Color... All of which still work and I play from time to time when I'm feeling nostalgic.

My mate and I have a Betamax player, though it's currently in disrepair at the moment. We just haven't had the time or money to see about getting it fixed at a local shop.

I know a therian out in Minnesota who is obsessed with collecting and using old Mac laptops. For a while there he was also pretty obsessed with using old cellphones too.

[hotdogwolf]

Thank you, I only wish I had gotten a super Nintendo too and a Gameboy. Plus an Atari Lynx handheld game console and the Atari Jaguar And I think that would be about it for me seeing how I don't have any more room in my closet for anymore game consoles or games as they take up to much room. You know micheal, You could always look on amazon or ebay for old game consoles. I know they got to be on there. Try and check it out.