Found elsenet. And now, with my memories of home taping off the radio using a cassette recorder and a microphone, I feel *ancient*:
@cstross Before that, we’d put tapes in our cauldrons. You know, to mix them.
@cstross [LLM training voice:] And from time to time the Burners get together for a big CD bonfire in the dessert 
@cstross One of my first programming exercises was to print/plot audio cassette case inlays using a SHARP PC-1500 programmable calculator and its four-colour ballpoint ink plotter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_PC-1500
@mschomm Oooh! My first useful computer (I don't count the ZX-81 it replaced) was a Casio FX-702p, basically similar to your Sharp but with an alphabetic (rather than QWERTY) keyboard. Couldn't afford the cassette interface or plotter, though.
I still have it. AND the manual.
@cstross I had a FX-602P before this - and a TI-58C before that. Couldn't afford the much cooler TI-59 at that time but loved its magnetic card/stripe reader.
@cstross I used to make my own podcasts before those were a thing!
I had a script that recorded radio programmes by capturing the output of the sound card while playing the RealAudio™ streams at the right time.
Those .wav were then turned into .mp3's, which I uploaded to my mp3 player. I could carry up to 64Mb (not Gb) of radio programmes in my pocket and listen to them at any time!
Incredible stuff.
@cstross @mschomm The part of me that is into #retrotech is very, very tiny… but that part of me is drooling right now.
@koehntopp Is that a HP-41(C) in the middle? Loved it when HP came out with the first calculators having alphanumeric displays, although their type of displays were quickly replaced with the more flexible dot matrix ones.
@rakslice I'm not quite old enough to have done that using a reel-to-reel tape recorder: those suckers were expensive, even in the mid-1970s!
@cstross Ditto. I was sorting through a box of old stuff my mother kept and found a cassette tape I made for her of Elvis Costello’s Watching the Detectives taken off the radio. Yup, with a shitty little mic.
@koehntopp @mschomm Here it is, and the 45 year old Casio FX-702p still works!
@pikesley No, that wasn't ever run as a campaign in the UK. Different performing rights organization.
@mschomm
It's a HP-41CV, used that whily studying (or rather bought one because I thought it was cool ;) )
Happy I finally got HP-67, that was the first programmable device I ever saw, from my maths teacher in 7th grade.
We should just let them go on thinking it was a ritual.
If you wanted a guy to fancy you? You HAD to burn him a mix. The way that turned out could tell you everything.
That's how I found my husband.
@futurebird Wife and I did most of our courting on the internet ... in 1992-93, before the web. A couple of years ago I unearthed a DC6150 mag tape with an arhive of our emails to each other!
(We had our second—and permanent—meet cute in the technotribal enclosure at the Glastonbury Festival in '93 and got incredibly stoned together watching Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer in one of the film tents.)
@cstross As a museum guide, I explain people how our gramophone worked. I never met such dumb people. Even the youngest have enough imagination to understand it.
@koehntopp @mschomm @cstross many happy memories. Did so much with the HP41C. It’s probably still floating around somewhere at my Dad’s house.
@cstross a polish colleague of mine told me about recording computer games off the radio. Warbling modem like sounds for half an hour, onto a C30 then into your commode 64, brilliant. I never heard of that in this country.
@cstross
I think I do remember seeing this model at that time, maybe a friend from school had one (almost everyone in our physics class had a programmable calculator, with very little overlap on models). For myself I directly went from the 'upright' FX-602P to the QWERTY design of the PC-1500.
@koehntopp
@cstross I grew up in New Zealand and was born in 2001 I remember both making my own cassette tapes and burning CDs from the age of six till I was about 11 and got an mp3 player. When I was 6 or 7 my parents used to pirate movies by renting them on DVD then dubbing them onto VHS (with an ancient VCR because macrovision). we only got internet in the house after the second time the local shopping centre called the cops on me because I used to sit there for hours using the free Wi-Fi when I was 12
@xs4me2 It's either epic trolling, or a teenager. Hard to be sure.
Bear in mind that a 15-year-old today was born in 2010, ten years old in 2020. The CD-R probably came out when her parents were teenagers. How well do you remember your parents' media?
(My brother still owns my mum's collection of shellac 78's of 1920s and 1930s jazz. I wonder if he's got them digitized yet?)
@cstross Burning a CD was a light weight ritual, all you need for that is some concentrated heat.
Have you fed the tape? How many tapes did you feed? How many were eaten? How many lifes crumbled because of that?
@koantig Now as you tell it ... as children, we read Donald Duck cartoon stories in different voices into a recorder like this (they only had a fix primitive microphone), and friends could copy the tapes if they wanted to listen to our first podcast. 😁 My recorder was less luxury, they were very expensive and a gift for very important celebrations often paid by several people.
@cstross
Some people in the 1930s had 78rpm recording turntables and radio. They are probably all dead now.
@makdaam Today we honour the memory of home taping killing music by cooking and eating tagliatelle in silence.
With all the knowledge in the world just a keyboard click away, how can you not know? That is my basic question… basically its the main thing I use the internet for… I remember the library being far away in the rural area where I grew up… so I consider that the greatest human invention since the printing press.
Naivety or irony, not sure what this is… but with AI that will provide precooked algorithmic answers it will not necessarily become better I presume…
@cstross Wait until she hears we used Nero for burning CDs
I recently introduced concept, purpose and practice of compiling mixtapes to a twenty-something coworker.
Judging by his expression, I might as well have been explaining medieval siege craft and how to build a trebuchet. 😂
@xs4me2 I don't know because I don't know what was in the two crates of disks he took away, he lives 300km from here and is a non-techie, there's no direct train route there (I can't drive any more), and we're not on close speaking terms this decade.
@cstross ah, such fond memories of tape recording Top of the Pops tracks from the live radio broadcast, and listening very intently for the technician starting the fade so you could press stop before the presenter's voice came in.
@cstross our local radio station franchise (now a Heart) used to use the tagline "we don't talk all over your favourite songs" and it was *absolutely* aimed at the "press record as soon as the DJ stops talking" market (plus it meant they could leave it on a playlist when they didn't have enough DJs)
@cstross Millenials and older gens should stop answering every dumb question they see on the internet
@cstross pfft cassette… I used a grundig open real tape machine (I’m not that old I was a strange child)
@whybird @cstross Sad side note is that that generation cannot wrap their mind around the concepts of: 1) fetching media 2) keeping their own copy.
There is no "home right-clicking/save as-ing" or "home USBing" to replace the home-taping and home burning of yore.
(one can thank DRM and DMCA-like law around the world for that).
@luboganev Uh, no: in my case, a 1970s mono cassette recorder with built-in condenser mic, held up to the speaker of a 1960s transistor radio.
@cstross Every time I read things like this, I wonder whether people really stop educating themselves, reading or simply taking an interest in the world and history after they finish school!
Still have a lot of records and cd’s here but use mostly digital media nowadays, the end of an era I guess…
I was commenting on the knowledge available on the internet, that means not knowing about anything, technology, history or whatever topic is a matter of not being able to think critically basically. Caused by education or maybe personal choice…
I will never understand that. As someone involved in R&D I live by asking why, how ad in what context every single day.
@cstross You took the "tape" for covering the joins between sheets of gypsum, and somehow applied music to it?
@cstross I used an open reel tape deck and patch cords, but I feel your pain. <image included for those who don't understand>
@cstross @dryak @whybird yeah I find it shocking how little someone of my younger relatives know about how computers actually work in spite of sometimes using them since they were toddlers like I had to spend half an hour explaining to my cousins oldest how to copy a video from her phone to her laptop without using the cloud she didn't even understand that her phone keeps the video as a file on her SD card let alone what folder it was in it doesn't help that MTP is a piece of shit
@cstross Did the same thing, and recording game soundtracks by holding the headphone against the mic on the cassette recorder
@addressforbots @dryak @whybird By over-focussing on making computers easy enough for 50-90% of the population to use, big tech has consequently disincentivized understanding. (This doesn't hurt their viability as advertising channels, of course.)
@cstross
Why are people so ignorant that they can't look it up? A simple web search for "burning CDs" would reveal it all. Even stupid AI could get THAT info.
@cstross I for one was not burning, I commanded Nero to burn a Rom for me
@cstross I'm honestly starting to get real tired of these rage baits because a) You can't be this dumb and b) surely, they know how to search the internet?
@cstross @luboganev We would put several gatefold LP sleeves round the mic trying to shield outside noise.
I recorded a Can performance on the BBC that way. Problem was, the radio was in the family room, with Dixon of Dock Green on the TV. As Can's music finished quietly, it was mixed with the nee-naw of a cop car coming for the wrong'uns on the TV.
Years later I got a Can cd bootleg. To my ears something was missing without the nee-naw.
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@cstross I remember copying games for ZX Spectrum using 2 cassette players... good o'l times. I also remember trying to create a phone network with a friend by pluging soldered wires to the phone into the Spectrum... could hear the noise but absolutely no results lol
@cstross old enough to have gotten a mix tape from a girlfriend as a gift
YES WE WORSHIPPED SATAN AND DANCED ABOUT THE FIRE CHRISTIANS TO THE PAGAN GODS.
YOU WERE SIRED FROM SUCH PRACTICES
@mausmalone @kyonshi Wasn't that a commercial Windows program?
(Shakes zimmer frame in Linux/OSX)
@cstross @mausmalone it was originally Shareware, yes
Anyway, I mostly jumped on the chance to make the Rome pun
@cstross Since I mostly did this when I was a bit high..."Why, Yes Chloe -- it did involve fire!"
@cstross @addressforbots @dryak @whybird As much as I loved '90s Unix for catering so completely to people who knew what they were doing, and I've always been infuriated by people insisting that a language or OS should be designed exclusively for ease-of-use for newbies, a middle-ground would be nice.
Easy to do the obvious/common things, but also inviting you in and making it possible to do non-obvious, complex and advanced things - and to learn how it works.
I'm confident it's possible. I'm also completely unqualified to work on the design.
@cstross
Millennials burned CDs and Gen X did, too. But they didn't start the fire. [rim shot] I think Boomers invented the process in the 1980s, possibly late 1970s.
There was a lot of burning going on in those days and even earlier. Burning looks, burning sarcasm, burning questions, burning bridges. Humanity is obsessed with fire. I guess you could say it's a burning desire.
@cstross -- This is why birth rates are so low today. Nobody knows how to put together a proper mixtape to hand over as that essential next-to-last step in the mating ritual.
@cstross Wait until she learns about burning ROMs too! It's the witchcraft that brings pinball and video game software up to date!
@cstross you know how in the movie Demolition Man they misinterpret everything in their archeological dig from before the civilization collapse? We're 100% on track for doing that it seems... 😆
@eobet No, I haven't seen that movie. (I don't generally watch movies/TV.)
@cstross When I was in the Army (mid to late 70's), my sister would record my favorite radio station and mail me cassettes. Those things were my lifeline... they kept me tethered to home and kept me from feeling homesick.
@cstross @addressforbots @dryak @whybird The computer/smartphone has become a magic wand. You need to say the magic formula and use the magic gestures and it does what you want. Only a few wizards know how to built them and how to creste new spells, but we will replace them with little elves and daemons from the AI dimension.
CDs were those new fangled things.
I also used to record cassettes direct from the radio. AM. Such quality.
@cstross the actual funny thing is how almost nobody in the comments realises this is clearly a joke 😆
@cstross No, we didn’t burn them with fire. We used frickin’ LASER beams!
Though, really I’m the mixtape generation, CDs came a few years later.
@cstross The good old days when the first few seconds of every song were missing because you had to quickly jump to the radio and press record. 😂
@cstross @dryak @whybird I was a teacher for 35 years. In the beginning I had to teach 10 year olds how to use a mouse. The middle was fine, just keep them away from wrecking Windows.
At the end I had to teach 10 year olds how to use a mouse and keep bottles of cleaner around to wash the sticky fingerprints off the screens.
Folder was a concept always to be taught. There is the Desktop for storage and cluttering.
@cstross Ooh! In the '90's I had a whole system with a computer, a cassette recorder, my FM stereo amp, and a serial port->X10 interface that would automagically record a radio show on Saturday afternoons, when I was usually out. Worked like a champ as long as I remembered to set it up on Friday.
Proud of my Geek Heritage.
@cstross
I am quite glad that some of the yoof are scared of our old tech fogey skillz (extra z added to show I am down with da kids)
@cstross that doesn't have anything to do with age.
This person knows what CDs are but has probably never thought about how stuff gets written on to them.
I am sure there are many people that think that CDs can only be bought already burned.
@cstross Pah! Get off my lawn == > 1, $ s/cds/cassette tapes/g
@cstross while we recorded, we had to sharpen our stone arrowheads silently.
@Anushka_Benari @cstross I used to record MIDI music using an MS-DOS PC with a Roland MIDI interface, a multi-timbral Roland synthesizer, and a rasta blasta with an AUX input.
@cstross Growing up we had a stereo we got for cheap from a local thrift shop that we discovered could record radio to tape internally. So this led to a small number of tapes recording mid to late 90's Chicago radio. Basically all Q101 and ROCK103.5.
I think we managed to exclude commercials by the careful pushing of buttons a few times.
@cstross These younger generations will never learn the art of hitting the “stop record” button just before the DJ comes back on.
@cstross
Wow… yeah why on earth are so many “young folk” clueless and not even curious enough to look up what these things mean?😹
However… I’m perfectly fine with this description of what they *think* it might mean 😹… it’s rather amusing 😹🧙♀️
@cstross I was recording radio and tv audio on a reel to reel tape recorder in the early 70s
@cstross burning cds does sound more badass than “made you a tape”, Looking back at genx.
And then before that it was the vinyl crowd… and that just sounds so naughty
@cstross For my last date I made mixtape on cassette... and yes, it was in 2025 🤷♂️
@cstross Also, there’s something about enjoying a thing more if it took work to create. Those mix tapes were fun. In college, a huge music collector friend in the dorms made two of us a mix tape that we used to teach aerobics in the free class at the campus cafe. I still miss that mix tape.
@koehntopp @mschomm @cstross 32SII ♥️
Some of my first experiences using programming as a force multiplier for myself (as opposed to just futzing around) were on that thing.
@cstross Using a microphone and a cassette to tape a program off BBC radio to run in your microcomputer, correct?
@cstross @dryak @whybird
I've been appalled to see someone claim that inventory menus in video games that are text-based instead of being a bunch of icons you have to hover over to get described are "outdated" and therefore a deal-breaker.
Not merely old-fashioned. *Outdated*, and this was why someone wouldn't play a video game from 2002 unless it were "updated".
@cstross surprisingly, the answer is...yes?
Laser beams or whatever is used in there counts as "fire" of sorts right?
@KatS Unfortunately, it's not possible.
"The solution has to be as complex as the problem" is a law of nature, which in turn compels a sufficient abstraction (computer language, interface, material controls, etc.) to encompass as much complexity as the problems you're trying to solve.
So just like an annealing oven or a commercial bread oven have substantially more complex controls than a home kitchen oven, computer complexity gets discontinuous.
@graydon @cstross @addressforbots @dryak @whybird This is true, but it doesn't rule out layered interfaces, or UIs with selectable levels of complexity for beginners and experts.
It's a difficult problem, but I have faith that it's not insurmountable.
@KatS @graydon @addressforbots @dryak @whybird I suspect you can have simplicity/transparency with programmability as a substitute for complexity, but it will not be *less* complex at a UX level than a more complex UI that lacks programmability.
CF Apple throwing in the Shortcuts app on iOS/iPadOS which is just millimetres away from becoming a visual programming language: add an interface to Swift Playgrounds and it would be there, but it *wouldn't* be simple, it's just swallowed modern OOP.
@KatS There are things one must be taught how to use; the cultural transmission part is not optional.
For computer stuff, this might not start at "this is a file" (though it turns out file-as-abstraction comes from a former world) but it surely applies to "compiler" or "data abstraction".
(XML solves a problem domain if, and only if, someone explains it to you effectively. Otherwise you go invent JSON, and now someone has to explain that, too.)
@TracyTThomas Storm Constantine once made me a mixtape and I swear I spent the next two decades hunting down and listening to every band on it. (It got me into EBM and industrial music, for starters.) This was in 1990 …
@KatS @cstross @addressforbots @dryak @whybird
Easy to do the obvious/common things, but also inviting you in and making it possible to do non-obvious, complex and advanced things
Am reminded of an old slogan: "Perl makes easy things easy and hard things possible."
See also manipulexity vs whipuptitude.
@barubary @KatS @addressforbots @dryak @whybird But Perl—I say this from a position of love—was invented by a linguist who was also a programmer. That is *not* remotely a position most computer users are coming from: try to imagine teaching Perl to the most uninterested and/or stupid person in your high school geography class.
@cstross @barubary @addressforbots @dryak @whybird I taught a small group of extremely smart network engineers to use python for automation, and that was largely an uphill struggle.
That kind of thing is why I see programming (of any form, including visual) as a second or third layer. The easy stuff has to be pointy-clicky easy.
Now I think on it a little further, I think the optimal model for UIs, in terms of learning-curve and exposure to complexity, would be based on Disneyland's approach to queue-management. At any point, you can see the next little bit of complexity in easy reach, and you're not overwhelmed by knowing just how much more lies beyond that corner.
@cstross @KatS @addressforbots @dryak @whybird Yes, of course. But I think it is interesting how the same sort of tension between different requirements (in almost exactly the same words) pops up at different levels, be it programming/scripting or computer UIs and concepts in general. Sadly I have no good solution either.
(And I have seen smart and interested Media & Communication students struggle with introductory Java classes, so far be it from me to suggest programming skills (let alone Perl) as a general requirement to use digital devices.)
@cstross We are now officially so old, that we are the "Ancients" in modern cult mythology.
@cstross You mean back when "taping it" actually involved tape? Yeah, I remember.
@KatS @cstross @barubary @addressforbots @dryak @whybird That's a very good approach to it. It applies to everything really, not just UIs. Eg., the realization that the more complex UI automation bits map 1:1 to a simple model of a scripting language, which eases the transition and gives people who don't need the additional complexity a place to stop before learning Python/etc..
@tknarr @KatS @barubary @addressforbots @dryak @whybird
I hate to give Microsoft credit for ANYTHING, but circa 1989 Word for Windows 1.0 had a macro recorder that could record and replay event sequences—which you could then edit as Word BASIC scripts and manually add flow of control operators to, then bind to keys or menus. BASIC aside, that was doing it right.
@KatS @cstross @barubary @addressforbots @dryak @whybird The problem with too many non-programming approaches was that they did simplifcation by limitation. They made it easier to do things not so much by providing a simple way to do some things but by limiting what you could do to only those simple things. That made it easy to do the easy stuff and impossible to do the hard stuff, which is non-optimal.
@cstross you're just a kid: I used an open reel tape deck.
@crankyoldbugger I couldn't afford one. (They were still a thing, though.)
@cstross @tknarr @KatS @barubary @addressforbots Script Editor for macOS can record AppleScript macros in this fashion, but I don't know if it works with all types of applications.
@cstross At four score and more...I used to make crystal sets to listen to Radio Luxemburg-
@koehntopp @mschomm @cstross a magical HP42 ! Sadly only have a Dm42, the ersatz. Hp48G my true magical device.
Younger guy at a previous job started telling me about mixtapes. I am in my sixties. I just smiled and encouraged him to tell me more.
@cstross hell yes it works, I met my husband like that. You should try it, but it's very important to do it in a well ventilated room or outside away from neighbours.