Throwback Technology Thursdays: the Cassette Tape Adapter!

 

Next in our Throwback Technology series:  the Cassette Tape Adapter!  

OK, why does that cassette tape have a tail?  That is no tail, my friend, but rather an example of a moment in transitional technology.  We all face these transitions, when technology Y starts to supplant technology X, but we still have technology X and we want to keep using it.  And only when we get to technology Z do we decide we might just need to give up on X.

In the meantime, though, something like this cassette tape adapter might just work for what we need.  In this case, this fine object, a headphone jack and cable on the end of a cassette, might seem like an odd merging of devices.  But this is no mere gluing together of objects with the hope of attracting attention, or making it easier to find your favorite cassette by tying it to your arm.  

The cassette adapter came about as a way to plug a cassette into the cassette player of a car, and then plug the cable into a CD player.  That way, you could play one of those newfangled CDs in your car without installing a car CD player.  You could use a much cheaper portable CD player instead.

Of course, as with all technologies, this had some issues.  The one I experienced the most was that the tape on the cassette would break, rendering the device useless.  But for the most part, the tape would stay together and keep transmitting the signal from the CD player or other device through the car's audio system.  And other devices clearly became important as we moved beyond the CD for media to listen to.  Anything you could plug into a headphone jack, an iPod, your phone, an MP3 player, could send out sweet sounds for your driving enjoyment.

This device may not be completely in the throwback category.  According to this 2011 New York Times article, the last car manufactured with the option of a factory-installed cassette player was a 2010 Lexus SC 430.  So, while there are certainly cars on the road with cassette players (Car and Driver in 2020 estimated that the average car is 11.9 years old), they are rarer and rarer indeed.

We've now moved on to Bluetooth transmission of audio from your phone to your car, or using an AUX cord, with a stop along the way for the FM transmitter (which, when plugged into your device) could send your audio onto an unused radio station address on the FM dial).  

This will likely not be our last example of transitional technology (I know I have an FM transmitter somewhere).  If you'd like to see the cassette tape adapter, or one of our cassette player/recorders, stop by the library.   More throwback technology is coming at you next week!