hi Joe, no this takes ordinary cassettes, it is like the shoe box, lies on it's back and has a piano keybord like controls, ie from left to right, record, play, fast rewind, fast forward, stop and pause. hope this makes sense, it is about 12 years old. many thanks ----- Original Message ----- From: joe bollard To: vip students Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 7:54 PM Subject: [vip_students] shoe box tape recorder hello susan, can you explain a little more what you mean by shoe box tape recorder, most recorders today are digital recorders with SD cards, although some people still use minidisk recorders, most audio journalists today are as i say using the digital recorders, some of them are not very blind friendly, i'm currently using the plextor recorder, it is excellent for people with sight loss, and the quality is brilliant, don't know if this helps, take care, travel safely, joe. -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 1738 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message