In the past, records were ruling the world. All you had to do to take the music home was to buy that shiny piece of vinyl. People purchased lots of these records and that was the best option at the time. It was really a bad day when you did found that your favourite track was scratched: that's the problem of records.



And then the audio cassette was introduced. It was a huge advance for two reasons- first, cassettes were more durable than vinyl discs; second and much more importantly, you could record onto them! That means that for the first time, people could record their own audio tapes of whatever they felt like with the same technology used by the professionals.

This new and more compact form of recording music also led way to the walkman revolution. Now youth were able to take their loud music with them. This was revolutionary! Previous to this the most portable music had been was either a car radio or boom box. The walkman allowed this portable music to only be heard by the wearer. What a relief!

There was a distinct disadvantage to the audio cassette. You could not pick and choose which songs you listened to, you had to listen to every single one on the tape. That could be annoying if there was a song you particularly wanted to hear again. You needed to rewind the tape and that could take some time. You also ran the risk of rewinding too far and then going back and forth in an attempt to find the start of your song.

The audio cassette has lost most of its old market, but not all of it. There are still many people who swear that the audio cassette is at least the equal of the CD or the MP3. In addition, the creation of digital audio tapes allows the humble cassette to have a new lease on life. If you prefer your IPod, that's your concern; we'll stick with what we enjoy.

For those of us who grew up with the old fashioned mix tapes, we will always hold a soft part of our hearts' for the tape that let us be our own DJ. But now that we all have laptops and MP3 players, we have kind of let that art die out. It will never be forgotten though.