this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Cassette Futurism

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Welcome to Cassette Futurism Lemmy and Mbin Community.

A place to share and discuss Cassette Futurism: media where the technology closely matches the computers and technology of the 70s and 80s.

Whether it's bright colors and geometric shapes, the tendency towards stark plainness, or the the lack of powerful computers and cell phones, Cassette Futurism includes: Cassettes, ROM chips, CRT displays, computers reminiscent of microcomputers like the Commodore 64, freestanding hi-fi systems, small LCD displays, and other analog technologies.

See this blog to know more.


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My first PC, a TRS-80 Model III (1980) (www.homecomputermuseum.nl)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Z80 CPU, 2.03 MHz. 4kb of ram. No drives, just a cassette player/recorder, which frequently would lose your programs.

Good times.

More info: https://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/models/model-3/

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[–] BorisBoreUs 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good ol' Trash-80 ...learned Basic on one of those.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

Me too. From typing code in from magazines mostly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

OMFG I remember typing in code on my TI-99/4A and then saving it to cassette. I tried writing my own game, but could only figure out how to move one thing at a time on the screen.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

Yup. I remember typing in a sort of blackjack card game, but it was mostly text and used verrrry simple graphics for the cards. More than 1,000 lines of code, "hand crafted" as we say now.

[–] disguy_ovahea 4 points 23 hours ago

Same. I remember my first magazine script-kiddie code. Whenever you pressed a key on the keyboard, the screen would change to a different solid color.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 22 hours ago

No, I had to give up my first one when I went away to college. And then I bought another in about 1994 out of nostalgia. Then I realized how bad it was at computing and how large it was, and sold that one within a year.

[–] disguy_ovahea 2 points 23 hours ago

I had TRS-80 Color Computer II. Pro tip for the cassette save- make dupes. Frequent rewinding to the beginning to reset the counter then fast forwarding to the saved data or blank space will eventually cause the tape to stretch. Over time, that will make saved data points begin progressively later, and may make longer saves completely unreadable.

[–] homesweethomeMrL 1 points 21 hours ago

The design is so fantastic I keep imagining buying one and retro-fitting it with modern parts but - even the broken ones are $400 now. Ugh.