CassetteFuturism

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this is a space for Cassette Futurism -- retro images, media, design and technology from the 70s and 80s

*reposts to get started, mods welcome

founded 1 year ago
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"Retro game consoles 2" by Zaki (cdnb.artstation.com)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Source with more renders: Retro game consoles 2 (by Zaki - ArtStation)

Bunch of assets that I made for a project I am working on.
Stickers and decals from
https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/krk7B/316-hand-drawn-cyberpunk-urban-decals

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/creatiflux

RSS Feed: https://creatiflux.artstation.com/rss

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Source with more images and info: The Playboy Land Yacht Concept by Syd Mead (1975) - Blog

More images

  • Main picture without text:

  • nocturnal view — through the rear window:

  • Driver Console:

  • Sleeping Format:

  • Conversation format:

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Source: weird walkman (by Leonardo Mazzoli - ArtStation)

Video link

QUIET personal project prop study + random old computer having a bad day. Tinkering with the small animations and working on the audio design was a fun side project.
You've got mail!
It's the brand new QUIET Superfriend™, now better equipped than ever to keep you in touch with you friends and family, if you still have them, or to listen to your favourite music while staring at the stars alone. After all, the Superfriend™M isn't called like that for no reason! The QUIET Superfriend™M kx-390 has all the features you will possibly ever need, like two memory card slots, quick reverse extra stabilized magnetic tape recorder, dual band transceiver chip, 100x optical zoom cameras AND MORE! Order one through your personal NET terminal TODAY and start feeling less lonely.
QUIET, because life is just too short

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/leonardomazzoli

RSS Feed: https://leonardomazzoli.artstation.com/rss

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Source: Handheld Sensor Gizmo (by Ville Seppänen - ArtStation)

For measuring things that can be measured. Personal project somewhat inspired by Star Trek TNG's tricorder.

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/accuman

RSS Feed: https://accuman.artstation.com/rss

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Using a framework motherboard and big dill extended keyboard, will have rails to hold multiple sets of controllers

current state of the case

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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Source James Prochnik: electronic data processing system | Flickr:

electronic data processing system

image from RCA Annual Report 1959

"The RCA 501 transistorized Electronic Data Processing System became the core of the nation's first Electronic Systems Center, opened in 1959 at RCA's Cherry Hill N.J. offices."

Posted originally on r/cassettefuturism

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Source: TEXT-MODE
Tumblr archive: https://text-mode.tumblr.com/archive
RSS Feed: https://text-mode.tumblr.com/rss

Beltel was South Africa’s videotex system. It was launched in 1986 and seems to have been quite active even in 1999 *.

* Original link broken: replaced with archive version.

Seen on: Buttons & Knobs
Tumblr archive: https://vizreef.tumblr.com/archive
RSS Feed: https://vizreef.tumblr.com/rss

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Citroen BX "Digit" 1985 (lh6.googleusercontent.com)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Source: EBM A128 Sci-Fi Cassette Computer (by Leigh Harborne - ArtStation)

I started out playing with booleans and ended up with some shapes that reminded me of home computing in the 80s; the Atari and Commodore era. So I put a sci-fi spin on it and turned it into a game-ready model.
I was impatient when it came to moving over to Substance Painter so there is some wasted texture space on some interior faces that really should have been removed.

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/leighalexh

RSS Feed: https://leighalexh.artstation.com/rss

Posted originally on r/cassettefuturism

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 
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"VHS [prop]" by Mace Skinner (cdnb.artstation.com)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Source with more renders: VHS (by Mace Skinner - ArtStation)

some props 2

Ad included

ArtStation profile: https://www.artstation.com/maceskinner

RSS Feed: https://maceskinner.artstation.com/rss

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Source with many more images: Century 21 Props - Rack cabinets (Space: 1999 Catacombs)

The main unit featured was in the corner of the SHADO headquarters in UFO. Even within UFO episodes, details change as the prop is refurbished. For Space: 1999, some sections are have been swapped around, altered and in one case replaced. The top panel in UFO, with 3 round dials, swaps with the one at knee height, with a square red dial and four green wheels. Two of the middle panels are altered, and the central one has been replaced entirely.

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Let's do a thought experiment.

Let's assume we just never got hard drives to work all that well, head crashes are common and large storage capacities are only possible in servers with incredibly expensive anti vibration setups and what not and there's no way they'd ever work in portable devices. And optical media just didn't work out. Maybe somehow we didn't discover the science in time and the companies working on it just failed or bad management decisions killed off the research into it before anything useful came off of it. And flash storage just never came down in price.

How far could we have pushed cassettes and tape if all the effort that went into other technologies had to be put into cassettes because there simply wasn't a good alternative for data storage. What are the limits of how fast we could move tape in a cassette? How miniaturized would the technology be by now in 2023? I know that there are contemporary tape backup systems with large capacities but there hasn't been any efforts into high speed seek times or making cassettes a viable tiny medium for use as removable media on PDAs or mobile phones.

If we could pack data densely enough and move the tape quickly enough how possible would modern computer tasks like high resolution digital video or image editing be? Assuming that we still had the high speed processors and non-persistent memory of the present but just no other data storage medium aside from magnetic tape.

For inspiration consider that in 1992 we had NT Cassettes that are about as big as an SD card an could store nearly a Gigabyte and in the enterprise LTO-9 tape (released in 2021) stores around 18 TB. So it doesn't sound impossible to have tiny cassettes with a lot of storage if we spend the last 3 decades working on it.

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found on lesbianboy-art's tumblr; but it is now dead so i will link their linktree as well

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