Ray,
I only have to think of the sad case of Soundings magazine and the
disadvantages of the cassette medium become obvious. When they had to stop
sending out CD's, I told them not to bother sending me the cassettes to
which we were all defaulted. As long as the digital files are available to
us and my PC is working, there is no need for me to receive the cassette
version where navigation is difficult and sound quality is less than the
computer files.
Iain.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray's Home" <rays-home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 11:54 AM
Subject: [access-uk] BBC NEWS | Technology | Not long left for cassette
tapes (I feel no pain)
Interesting post Colin, not least the reflections on the by-gone days of real time copying and the record industry's anxst over life copying in the slow lane, so to speak. Sure they'd have those days back again if only they could!
What perplexes me at times is how slow many of the VI community are in accepting the benefits of digital media, and particularly DAISY and DAISY players, especially as you can get these for free on loan. One bloke I know moaned about the fact that his JAWS manuals didn't come on cassette, but on CD. He went out and bought a bog standard walkman-type CD player to play them on, in spite of the fact I'd told him about the DAISY players' availability through the Talking Book arrangements with Local Authorities. The DAISY format addresses all the criticisms of the lack of ease about picking up where you left off, and you can mark areas of disks you are interested in, and just as easily remove the marks afterwards.
Then there are still those who tell me how good it is that cassettes for magazines etc can be recycled and therefore how cost effective they still are. Really? How many of you have gone through the process of bulk erasing cassettes, and the time that adds to recycling hundreds of the damn things? Not to mention they sometimes, not very often though, snarl up. You can buy blank CDs in bulk for 10-15p each and it matters not that they aren't re-usable. Add to that the possibility of distributing in MP3 or other format, and the time savings in duplication are obvious. Eventually all this duplication should become a thing of the past when we get an easy to use internet player, rather like a radio -cassette player to use. Oh yes, I knew the cassette would have to appear again somehow. Thank goodness it is only in the form of a metaphor for the interface to operate the superior new digital players.
For those who have missed the original Colin posted, go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4099904.stm
Ray
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