Last month was spent in a state of upheaval. After seven years in New York I was heading back to the opposite coast, which had led me to go though of the hundreds of pounds of accumulated junk one accidentally collects in boxes over the years.
     |
Forget the MP3 player, or even the Walkman — the real instigator of the portable audio revolution is the compact cassette, which just marked its 50th birthday. Philips formally launched the format on September 13th, 1963, bringing recorded sound to a truly portable (and more accessible) form factor. The technology didn’t just kickstart the markets for media players, field recorders and boomboxes; it led to bootlegs, mixtapes and other ways to shake up the audio status quo. The cassette has largely disappeared outside of nostalgic reissues and transforming robot toys, but its effects are still visible after half a century of progress.
[Image credit: Tony Unruh, Flickr]
Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Storage
Source: Philips
The Toronto Sun has the story of a Canadian family so fed up with modern technology that they’ve reverted back to 1986. And that goes for everything — they’ve ditched their smartphones and closed their social media accounts. They’re listening to audio cassettes, using fax machines, and even wearing their hair in mullets! In a sense, they’re a bit like an Amish family if the Amish thought that every piece of tech developed after 1986 (rather than the 19th century) was the distraction that would keep them from being a tightly knit family unit.
| |
So many formative experiences occurred in school cafeterias where the lunchbox was a symbol of your budding sense of identity. Those little tin boxes line the walls of one quaint little museum in the back of an antique mall in Georgia.
| |
When you look back in time, it’s easy to forget what exactly happened when. Things sort of just blend together. Luckily we have YouTube videos to do our remembering for us now. Remember Videos just created a video about 1990 that shows off all that happened in pop culture back then, think Windows 3.0 Back to the Future 3, Total Recall, Robocop 2, some incredibly dated video games and more.
| |
While Jordan Mechner’s Karateka burst back onto the scene through its 2012 remake, that wasn’t good enough for purists who really just wanted a port of the 1984 original. Consider their wish granted, as Karateka Classic is coming to both Android and iOS on May 16th. The release goes the extra distance to recreate much of the Apple II-based fighting experience, warts and all — would-be warriors can even choose a monochrome screen palette or hear a floppy drive churning away. About the only concessions to modernity are touch control, playing tips and a Sands of Time-style rewind feature. At 99 cents, Karateka Classic is undoubtedly a cheap nostalgia trip… even if it does trigger that fear of birds we thought we’d cured ages ago.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming
Source: Karateka
When I was growing up, my parents would tell me about all the ancient technologies they had to use in their youth. Whether it was a car with a manual choke, a phone that required you to ask an operator to connect you, or a record player with a hand crank, mom and dad experienced a ton of tech frustrations I would never know. More »
It’s every generation’s responsibility to grow old and become cranky at the next generation while talking about how growing up back then was so much more fun than growing up today. THESE KIDS KNOW NOTHING. All they do is stare at iPads and play crappy games by swiping on giant phones. At least we 90’s kids stared at televisions and played crappy board games by tapping a plastic button, right? More »
Forget the rose-tinted view of the early digital era that we sometimes get from chiptunes. High Contrast’s new “Spectrum Analyser” music video triggers our nostalgia by embracing the messiness and imperfections of computing in the ’80s and ’90s — all while producing the kind of psychedelic journey we’d have expected from the ’60s. We almost don’t know where to start. The flood of Windows screens? The polar bear fighting game? The endless, purposeful video glitches? There’s no one frame that can illustrate just how much 8- and 16-bit history is packed into one space. As long as you’re a fan of drum-and-bass, it’s best to catch the video after the break if you want a trip down memory lane… just expect a few odd detours.
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Alt
Source: Hospital Records (Twitter)
A year or so ago we posted a video by Smash TV called Skinemax. It’s was an incredible supercut of everything 1990s. Smash TV’s newest joint is called Memorex, and it’s all big hair, crappy video effects, and oh my God I haven’t thought about that commercial in decades! More »
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
