this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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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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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That damned Mylar keyboard. Easy to clean, horrible to use. Atari 400 has the same problem.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yep. Tried one at a family friend's house with a RAM expansion pack hanging off the back that kept disconnecting because it was such a wobbly connection, and heavier than the computer itself. Then there was the fact it was only black & white. Seemed a really unreliable PITA, so I was iffy about getting one.

Then Captain Kirk advertised the VIC-20, and I was sold.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh shit, that's cool. Did any of you guys do this?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Yup! I remember it so well. I even remember seeing this ad in a magazine and begging my dad to order it.. I was 10 years old, and built it with him.

I also remember going to a home computer sale event in my hometown. No shops were selling computer stuff in that town yet. Men with beards and long hair laughing that I was buying 1k Chess to play on my new computer.

The location for that sale was turned into public toilets.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Was that chess program that bad ?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why were they laughing ? This is a perfectly reasonable chess implementation

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Typical snobbery.

The Sinclair was rather ridiculed at the time as "not a real computer".

Nothing ever changes - Instead of being excited by someone having the skills to implement chess in 670k of memory by using freakin' machine language, and appreciating the Sinclair for what it is, they compared to what they had.

I mean wow, if you've never done machine language coding... I'm flabbergasted.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It was great. I was 10. I needed to be able to win once in a while, and I did.

They were laughing because they were early neckbeards. They probably had 16k of ram on their fancy BBC Micros.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Oh ok

Thought it was some kind of inside joke

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Wow. My parents weren't cool enough to get it for me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

This was sadly before my time. One of the people in the original post did have one though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I built one of these with my dad. I think he still has it around somewhere.

Cool little computer but the software was limited.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Sinclair? Sinclair, where did you go? Why did you leave me here?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago