Audio cassettes were all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s. They took over from vinyl as the main format for recorded music and you could buy either pre-recorded tapes with music from various artists, much like you can buy CDs or vinyl disc albums. You could also buy blank tapes on which you could make your own recordings.

These cassettes gave rise to the Sony Walkman which became particularly popular enabling people to listen to music on the way to work, whilst running and the like. They were the forerunner of MP3 players, Apple iPods and our phones today which cary music on them.

The cassettes consisted of a thin layer of plastic tape which contained magnetic material. This became magnetised when they were passed over a recording head, and they stored the music to be played back over a playback head.

These audio cassettes were relatively robust, although they were easy to take apart to see what was in them.

Music: Positive Fuse by French Fuse from YouTube library

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