Ian's Retro Museum
Press Play On Tape

A look at the computer compatible cassette recorders I have

Of course, we all knew "Computer compatible" was just a way to sell low quality crappy cassette recorders no-one would ever want to listen to music on

But computers like the ZX Spectrum loved the sharp sound output

Did you use one of these with your Speccy?

Many of us did, well I didn't because I started with a datasette with my Commodore Plus 4, and when I "upgraded" to my Sinclair Spectrum 128, I used the headphone output on my Bush Midi Hifi system.

And then I moved on to 3 1/2 inch floppys with my Amiga 500 Plus

Because that's what I'm like!

There are 5 cassette recorders in the museum

Panasonic RQ-2104



I've had this, admittedly grubby, shoebox cassette recorder for a while, I think it originally belonged to my sister, like most of my collection it badly needs a clean

ITT SL 59 automatic



I got this cassette recorder with my Acorn Electron, it's a shoebox style cassette recorder as was the style at the time, but slightly wider. It was released in 1979 and has all the usual features you would expect for the time, like auto stop, built-in microphone, headphone out and microphone in through a DIN connector. It can be powered by the mains through a normal C7 (figure-8) lead, or by five C cells. The automatic in the name probably refers to the auto stop feature

Sankyo ST-60



With a recent Sinclair Spectrum Plus ebay purchase I aquired this shoebox cassette recorder as well. The listing said it was non working and would need new belts, but look how cool it is

Triumph CR-1620



This shoebox cassette recorder was included with the bundle of a Sinclair Spectrum Plus bought from a car boot sale in Cornwall

Sony TCM 757



I found this chonky shoebox style cassette recorder in a local charity shop (Goodwill) It was a bit of a surprise to see it there, so after £10 was exchanged it was mine. Sony called their cassette recorders "Cassette-Corders" for some reason.

Commodore Datassettes



A look at all the Commodore Datassettes I have

The dark area

I hope you all find this as interesting and as nostalgic as I do.

And if you do, why not check out the next page in my retro museum... Collections

Or to quicky jump to another room of the museum, click or tap on Rooms at the bottom of this screen

Special thanks to my long-suffering partner Denise for putting up with all this "nonsense".

No cats were unnecessarily annoyed during the creation of this site

Well, maybe Olly was slightly irritated because breakfast was a few minutes late because the human was up late working on this site and overslept...



CATS!



6 - Number too big, 486:1

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