iPod Nano cases made of old cassette tapes

Francesco Fondi

#1 – 2:30 AM August 6, 2009

this is hardware porno!

athingcalledcat

#2 – 3:41 AM August 6, 2009

totally have to see if i can make a case for my shuffle using the old microcassettes i'm sure i have in a box around here somewhere.
inspiration ftw!

Allen Eddington

#3 – 5:23 AM August 6, 2009

Now if I could take a tape adapter, and put an mp3 player inside, so that I don't have a cord hanging out in my car!!!

dculberson

#4 – 7:27 AM August 6, 2009

Allen, it would be easy enough to make the tape adapter interface to the tape player's head, see here:

http://www.streettech.com/archives_DIY/audioAdapter.html

The challenge is that the tape deck will want to stick its spindles through your mp3 player! And if you don't mechanically connect the two spindles, the player will constantly try to flip sides. You'll still get sound, but it'll go "chunk-chunk-chunk" and drive you crazy. Unless you're Sloth, who loves Chunk.

xzzy

#5 – 9:16 AM August 6, 2009

The mp3 cassette sounds like a great project for a homemade mp3 player. Could even use the spindles as a power source maybe?

Give it a micro SD slot, cram in the chips needed to decode mp3's, and you got yourself a solution.

Anonymous Anonymous

#6 – 10:03 AM August 6, 2009

$49 is kinda steep for (what was then) a $0.50 chunk of plastic with about 5 minutes worth of labor.

Tell 'ya what? I still have a couple of drawers full of these dinosaurs ('cause I keep thinking that I might actually play one again some day). I'll sell them individually to any DIYer for $30/each.

Still sound steep? Thought so.

Anonymous Anonymous

#7 – 2:01 PM August 6, 2009

for a mp3 player that fits in a cassette player and actually plays when the spindles turn and skips tracks when the ff and rwd buttons are pressed, here's a cheapo chinese crapgadget for $16:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10203

bibulb

#8 – 2:46 PM August 6, 2009

#3, #4 and #5 :

Google the old Digisette - it was an awesome idea for its time, but like all DAPs from its time was brutally overtaken by progress. IIRC, it had some small amount of onboard storage, and then it also had a MMC slot for expandability.

It even had the forerunner to Griffin's SmartDeck adapter, where when you'd fast forward the cassette deck it would advance to the next track. (Based on my experience with the SmartDeck, it would probably also go psycho in a Honda's autoreverse deck.)

When I first saw it, I thought it was REALLY neato and was upset that I didn't buy one. Nowadays, I figure I'm deep enough in old MP3 players and PDAs that it doesn't hurt as much...

eli

#9 – 4:05 PM August 6, 2009

i bought one of these at a craft sale in vancouver awhile back and although it looks pretty hot, it's not really worth the price tag. the plexi scratches really quickly and the padding inside loses its grip on your shuffle pretty quickly and it falls out easily.

mine's retired to the car cuz it's not much use as an everyday holder.