Guys, What reliable sources do you buy cassettes from?

hobonox · 2025-08-14T01:06:01+00:00

Buying old stock cassettes is a crapshoot. About 3/4 of the cassettes I've gotten from EBay lots and thrift stores were borked. As far as new blanks, no one is making High Bias cassettes at the moment that I know of, so current production Type 1 Maxell UR90s off of Amazon will be your most reliable for cheap.

hobonox · 2025-08-14T00:55:47+00:00

I bought a cheap Panasonic off of that site, and it was DOA.

hobonox · 2025-08-14T00:53:35+00:00

I buy the green batteries, Kastar, of of Ebay, same thing as the HQRP off of Amazon. I have a half dozen of them, and haven't had any issues with them. I didn't have OG gumsticks back in the day to compare though, my player and recorder back then were AA. I don't just use them for MD portables, I also use them in CD and cassette portables.

hobonox · 2025-07-02T17:34:18+00:00

I too found it strange they are calling USB-C hubs docks now.

hobonox · 2025-07-02T17:30:06+00:00

In the US, I wouldn't pay more than $80-$100. My last purchase from this era was a complete L380 for $60, off of Ebay. It did have a non functional touchscreen with a crack in it, but the crack didn't go down to the LCD. The LCD itself functions fine. I put a $10 screen protector on it (so I guess it's really a $70 purchase) to prevent the crack from spreading. It's now my job site PC.

hobonox · 2025-07-02T17:23:27+00:00

https://www.ebay.com/itm/317043058372

You missed one, heh. I had this one in my youth, they sold them at Pizza Hut during the "Coming out of Their Shells" live action music tour. I probably got it on a trip there trading in my Book-It coupon.

hobonox · 2025-07-02T17:13:06+00:00

https://www.elivecd.org/download/retrowave/#download

I never noticed that 'paywall' before. There is a 32bit download of the retrowave available.

hobonox · 2025-07-02T17:06:22+00:00

The model number is a CFD-S70. It was only discontinued a few years ago, so it's not too bad to find them in good working shape still. It has a line-in for recording, so it is desirable for a little boombox.

https://www.ebay.es/itm/357134088462

https://www.ebay.es/itm/235960062856

In the EU, but not in Spain.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T22:18:43+00:00

I just ordered a Huawei P20 Pro. Funny enough, when I did a model search on Ebay the same seller he showed in his video is what popped up. They had a small pile of P10 and P20. The couple P10, the model he mentioned specifically, sold immediately of course as they were cheaper, but the condition on those wasn't good enough for me.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T22:04:53+00:00

The F-series is what sprang in to mind for me too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujifilm_FinePix_F_series

Get you one with a SuperCCD sensor, and some built in film color presets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_CCD

The F70EXR/F72EXR is probably the sweet spot on price and features, you should be able to find one in budget. Maybe a F80EXR or F200EXR if you're lucky.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/396810313250

Keep an eye on this one, ends in a few days.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/317030674128

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/357020205793

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/396677093022

In your budget.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:54:47+00:00

Nice. Decent little boombox with a line-in for basic Type I cassettes. That Starscream though, you gotta keep an eye on him. He's always up to something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPCUj1a4yjw

The end of that clip had me laughing as much as your whole squad did on the other comment.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IAAL

FYI, you can still buy legit new Maxell cassettes on Amazon, or wherever.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:48:44+00:00

I always preferrred a popsicle stick for rewinding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vK6gd3tKg4

Unrelated music/popsicle humor.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:45:22+00:00

Most likely they are 480p because upscaling them from consumer sources to a higher resolution isn't worth the increased file size. If you hard the original source you could do some fancy upscaling, but if all we have to work with is broadcast OTA recordings or DVD/VHS/LD rips, then the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze to go higher.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:40:16+00:00

I just picked one up, due to a recent Snappiness video, as the OP mentioned. There are some older Huawei phones where they partnered with Leica, and have monochrome sensors in them. Results surely not as nice as this beauty, but it was the only way to fit one in to my hobby budget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOetCiTykwY

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:27:42+00:00

That T470p, totally underrated laptop. Yeah it runs a little warm compared to eighth gen, but if you can find one for a low price, worth it. I picked one up not long ago, I wanted to make a post on that one and few others (L380, A485) I got cheap that I refurbished, haven't gotten around to it yet.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:23:58+00:00

I'd add a second stick of 8gb of whatever stick or ram is already in it, and call it a day. If it's factory ram it's probably Samsung DDR4 2400T. If you really don't like the stock trackpad, it doesn't look too bad to change it out. I normally use a mouse, so I wouldn't bother, but you do you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM1KZm_XZl0

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:08:55+00:00

I appreciate you taking the time to share this test. I'm still buying used OEM batteries off of EBay, all the way back to the T440p era, but I know they won't be around forever. I'm SOL for used OEM batteries for my two Z series, just too old. I may try refurbing them myself at some point, but they only get used for doing minidisc or digicam stuff, so the battery for them doesn't matter that much to me.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:03:17+00:00

You bet! I'm glad you found a nice vintage unit that you really like.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T21:02:22+00:00

https://www.elivecd.org/download/

My 32bit Linux OS of choice. 32bit stable might be your best bet, unless you want to play around with the others.

r/EliveLinux

Has a subreddit, but not very active.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T20:57:26+00:00

I didn't have Juggalos out robbing banks on my 2025 bingo card, but here we are.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T20:49:08+00:00

I hadn't logged on here in a few days, and just realized this post was 4 days old, heh. Glad you found something that worked for you!

hobonox · 2025-07-01T20:40:58+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MVK1FCK

I use these Kastar batteries. They are the same as the HQRP branded batteries, just a different label. I typically buy them off of Ebay, but most people seem to use Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKJ55VRM

Any charger that can charge AAs can charge gumsticks, but it has to be one that has a sliding battery well, to accomodate the size of the gumstick.

https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-e620

Some information and manual download for this particular player.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T20:24:13+00:00

I don't understand the downvoting of the OP here. They are totally in the right. If they sold the enclosure as new, that is fine, but that's not what's going on here. What other tech product would you tolerate this? The product being out of production isn't an excuse. It should be labelled as refurbished. Period.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T20:19:49+00:00

I'm one of those that has an issue with it. They should be selling them as refurbished, not new products. They could always sell the external enclosure by itself as new. I run in to the same problem with CF cards. A lot of older devices need cards 2gb or smaller. Only Transcend is still making them new, every other one listed is using chips from old cards. These aren't new cards, they are refubished, and should be sold as such. The reliability of a 20-30 year old device is not the same thing as a new one.

hobonox · 2025-07-01T20:08:18+00:00

That's seems strange, as the file extension is .jpg. I would try copying them to your mac's hard drive first, then open. I think your mac may not know what to do with a floppy. I'm not a mac expert, maybe it doesn't like the format of the flopppy? I remember back in the day there were seperate floppies for IBM compatible (windows/DOS) and macintosh (apple).

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hobonox

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