Age Test: Best Guess. No Peeking.

Nooo!!! I know what it is. :( Clue: it's not all that obvious.

Posted by Fletcher Christian at October 8, 2011 11:26 AM

You'd stick the pen into one of the spools and use it to take the slack out of the tape before you put the tape in the cassette deck.

Posted by el baboso at October 8, 2011 11:33 AM

Plastic! Dustin Hoffman got good advice in the The Graduate, I hope he listened.

Posted by chuck at October 8, 2011 11:39 AM

El baboso beat me to the right answer.

Posted by Gloria at October 8, 2011 12:07 PM

Heh. I started laughing out loud as soon as I saw it, but then, I was born in 1953. ..bruce..

Posted by bfwebster at October 8, 2011 12:11 PM

What's scary is how quickly it comes to mind! haha! My kids may not even know what a cassette tape is.

Posted by RedCarolina at October 8, 2011 12:13 PM

My thought is exactly baboso's thought. Isn't it obvious?

Posted by Jewel at October 8, 2011 12:33 PM

Yep, I also thought what el baboso thought. I wonder what the cutoff age is?

Posted by Julie at October 8, 2011 1:06 PM

My 16-year old did not know.

But. When I explained he said "I always just used my finger."

It's never black and white with that kid.

Posted by Brian Dunbar at October 8, 2011 2:32 PM

Still playing them in my '94 chevy pickup.

Posted by Ed at October 8, 2011 2:46 PM

I laughed when I saw it, as I recalled the first car I had that came with a cassette deck and how I always kept a ballpoint pen clipped to the visor for rewinding.

Posted by Sara (Pal2Pal) at October 8, 2011 3:54 PM

So far you are all wrong. Both of these artifacts are analog recording insterments. While a pen is useful in taking the slack out of a cassett it is by no means required. A finger or any small diameter tool will work just as well.

And remember, there are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

PS I was born in 1947 and remember when tape came on reels and Pens were refillable.

Posted by Roger in Republic at October 8, 2011 6:31 PM

I still have a working top-of-the-line (in 1990) Nakaamichi cassette deck. Still sounds damn good, too.
-Bic pen is stationed next to it, but only the outer casing.
:-)

Posted by Patvann at October 8, 2011 6:56 PM

Heck, I can splice tape on a reel-to-reel. Thank goodness I didn't have to before we started using mini-discs. (Nothing like trying to do a sports highlight reel and finding out that the deck that was recording the game was slowly dying... so all of the highlights had a chipmunk quality to them.)

Posted by B. Durbin at October 8, 2011 8:47 PM

The world is moving so fast that just yesterday is an anachronism.

Posted by Joan of Argghh! at October 9, 2011 5:30 AM

Both were invented by Steve Jobs.

nyuk nyuk nyuk

Posted by chasmatic at October 9, 2011 6:07 AM

And then there was 8 track. Who remembers the context of this statement?
"OH DAMN! it ate my brand new Crosby Stills Nash and Young!
( to be uttered in tones of grief and anger)
You had to have been there. Yes, that's right, in the Volkswagen Van... that always had the vague smell of old doobies lost under the seats.

Posted by stuart at October 9, 2011 10:15 AM

You use the first thingie to write the name of the band and the name of the CD you ripped onto the second whazzit.
(/snark)

Posted by BlogDog at October 9, 2011 1:30 PM

@stuart---I fell in love with a boy who had a FOUR-track! And 41 years later he is still pounding on the steering wheel, the dash board, and my knee---in time to the music---as we cruise down the road (hush, hush, I thought I heard her calling my name, hush hush).

Posted by Deborah at October 10, 2011 4:57 AM

BlogDog

No, not CDs, vinyl LPs!!!

Posted by leelu at October 10, 2011 6:11 PM

You can put that pen into the wheel and tighten the tape inside of the carriage.

Posted by Connie Bowin at October 10, 2011 6:56 PM

You can put that pen into the wheel in that tape cassette and wind the tape tighter.

Posted by Connie Bowin at October 10, 2011 6:58 PM

Say you buy a tape to record upon, it is recordable when a little plastic square is not popped in. You use the pen to pop the plastic square in so that the tape is no longer able to be recorded on or overwritten.

Posted by taoofwood at October 22, 2011 2:54 PM

Say you buy a tape to record upon, it is recordable when a little plastic square is not popped in. You use the pen to pop the plastic square in so that the tape is no longer able to be recorded on or overwritten.

Posted by taoofwood at October 22, 2011 2:55 PM

sorry about the double post.

Also, you can use the pen to unwind the tape from the top and absolutely destroy it. Very useful indeed!

Posted by taoofwood at October 22, 2011 2:59 PM

i take notes wit

Posted by alwanderer at October 23, 2011 3:04 PM

Anachronism alert! (OK, just pedantry.)

They didn't have gel-ink pens in those days. You need to find an old-style Bic, vintage about 1972. Maybe the fine-point ones with the yellow barrel ;o)

Posted by Jim Whyte at October 25, 2011 9:10 AM