Many products take a completely antagonistic stance toward the user, and the most unsettling part is that their creators try to sell this as a special feature. The Tape-deck project by Jarek Lupinski seems to "honor" that trend by presenting the most user-unfriendly cassette deck in the world. Forget about skipping tracks, rewinding, or even changing the volume: Tape-deck is an "experience."
Programs you can't install. Interfaces you can't modify. Formats you can't open. Files you can't copy. "You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't." And the manufacturer's response? "It's a feature, not a bug," also known as "We're not going to change that, ever." Under the pretext of selling an "experience," many names in the market offer inferior products that the user ends up accepting for one reason or another. And the Tape-deck project by Jarek Lupinski joins in with a piece that the market would definitely call "artistic."
Tape-deck: 'Purity' When Listening to Cassettes
At first glance, Tape-deck is a cassette player with two built-in speakers, and a controller based on the Raspberry Pi Pico. However, the technical details aren't the most important thing here: Tape-deck has no buttons. When you insert a cassette, Tape-deck plays it to the end, then repeats the process in the other direction automatically. Want to stop or pause the tape? You can't: "You should finish what you started," says the official page.
What about the volume? There's no volume knob on the deck either. "Listen to louder or quieter albums," says Tape-deck. Okay… but everyone has their favorite songs, and more than once it's logical to fast-forward the tape to get to them. Tape-deck's response is: "The artists who recorded the album want you to listen to it this way."
It's violent, it's provocative, and it perfectly represents many 'modern' products. But Tape-deck is also open source, which means we can modify its design. Personally, I think adding a volume control wouldn't be complicated at all. As for fast-forwarding and rewinding... we can always use a pen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Official site: Click here. Tape-deck on GitHub: Click here. Source: Hackaday.
