@cstross We also ripped CDs. With our bare hands.

@cstross
This has so be satire. Even if you didn't know what burning cds means it's just one search...

@cstross Recording mix tapes on cassettes by pressing Play+Record in the 90s.
Burning CDs was a huge improvement years later requiring a costly CD writing drive.

@cstross "serious question" citation needed

@cstross hell yes it works, I met my husband like that. You should try it, but it's very important to do it in a well ventilated room or outside away from neighbours.

But we didn't have texts in those days. Most people had pigeons, but if you lived close enough you could pay the paper child to deliver a note for you.

@cstross

Younger guy at a previous job started telling me about mixtapes. I am in my sixties. I just smiled and encouraged him to tell me more.

@cstross At four score and more...I used to make crystal sets to listen to Radio Luxemburg-

@cstross you're just a kid: I used an open reel tape deck.

@cstross u and me both

@cstross kids these days

@cstross You mean back when "taping it" actually involved tape? Yeah, I remember.

@cstross We are now officially so old, that we are the "Ancients" in modern cult mythology.

@cstross surprisingly, the answer is...yes?

Laser beams or whatever is used in there counts as "fire" of sorts right?

@cstross Using a microphone and a cassette to tape a program off BBC radio to run in your microcomputer, correct?

@cstross We still do suck burns. 100% evergreen. Or evargreen.

@cstross Also, there’s something about enjoying a thing more if it took work to create. Those mix tapes were fun. In college, a huge music collector friend in the dorms made two of us a mix tape that we used to teach aerobics in the free class at the campus cafe. I still miss that mix tape.

@cstross For my last date I made a mixtape on cassette... and yes, it was in 2025 🤷‍♂️

@cstross You are ancient I used to do that.

@cstross I still remember using a cassette tape player to load games into my TI 99/4a computer

@cstross burning cds does sound more badass than “made you a tape”, Looking back at genx.

And then before that it was the vinyl crowd… and that just sounds so naughty

@cstross I was recording radio and tv audio on a reel to reel tape recorder in the early 70s

@cstross

Ouch! 💀

@cstross
Wow… yeah why on earth are so many “young folk” clueless and not even curious enough to look up what these things mean?😹
However… I’m perfectly fine with this description of what they *think* it might mean 😹… it’s rather amusing 😹🧙‍♀️

@cstross These younger generations will never learn the art of hitting the “stop record” button just before the DJ comes back on.

@cstross Growing up we had a stereo we got for cheap from a local thrift shop that we discovered could record radio to tape internally. So this led to a small number of tapes recording mid to late 90's Chicago radio. Basically all Q101 and ROCK103.5.

I think we managed to exclude commercials by the careful pushing of buttons a few times.

@cstross while we recorded, we had to sharpen our stone arrowheads silently.

@cstross Pah! Get off my lawn == > 1, $ s/cds/cassette tapes/g

@cstross that doesn't have anything to do with age.
This person knows what CDs are but has probably never thought about how stuff gets written on to them.
I am sure there are many people that think that CDs can only be bought already burned.

@cstross
I am quite glad that some of the yoof are scared of our old tech fogey skillz (extra z added to show I am down with da kids)

@cstross Ooh! In the '90's I had a whole system with a computer, a cassette recorder, my FM stereo amp, and a serial port->X10 interface that would automagically record a radio show on Saturday afternoons, when I was usually out. Worked like a champ as long as I remembered to set it up on Friday.

Proud of my Geek Heritage.

@cstross No, we didn’t burn them with fire. We used frickin’ LASER beams!

Though, really I’m the mixtape generation, CDs came a few years later.

@cstross the actual funny thing is how almost nobody in the comments realises this is clearly a joke 😆

@cstross

CDs were those new fangled things.
I also used to record cassettes direct from the radio. AM. Such quality.

@cstross When I was in the Army (mid to late 70's), my sister would record my favorite radio station and mail me cassettes. Those things were my lifeline... they kept me tethered to home and kept me from feeling homesick.

@cstross I was always disdainful of people who used microphones instead of connecting directly to the line-outs. I mean... quality, people...

@cstross you know how in the movie Demolition Man they misinterpret everything in their archeological dig from before the civilization collapse? We're 100% on track for doing that it seems... 😆

@cstross Wait until she learns about burning ROMs too! It's the witchcraft that brings pinball and video game software up to date!

@cstross -- This is why birth rates are so low today. Nobody knows how to put together a proper mixtape to hand over as that essential next-to-last step in the mating ritual.

@cstross
Millennials burned CDs and Gen X did, too. But they didn't start the fire. [rim shot] I think Boomers invented the process in the 1980s, possibly late 1970s.

There was a lot of burning going on in those days and even earlier. Burning looks, burning sarcasm, burning questions, burning bridges. Humanity is obsessed with fire. I guess you could say it's a burning desire.

@cstross SAME.

*sigh*

@cstross Since I mostly did this when I was a bit high..."Why, Yes Chloe -- it did involve fire!"

@cstross

YES WE WORSHIPPED SATAN AND DANCED ABOUT THE FIRE SACRIFICING CHRISTIANS TO THE PAGAN GODS.

YOU WERE SIRED FROM SUCH PRACTICES

@cstross old enough to have gotten a mix tape from a girlfriend as a gift

@cstross I remember copying games for ZX Spectrum using 2 cassette players... good o'l times. I also remember trying to create a phone network with a friend by pluging soldered wires to the phone into the Spectrum... could hear the noise but absolutely no results lol

@cstross I'm honestly starting to get real tired of these rage baits because a) You can't be this dumb and b) surely, they know how to search the internet?

@cstross I for one was not burning, I commanded Nero to burn a Rom for me

@cstross
Why are people so ignorant that they can't look it up? A simple web search for "burning CDs" would reveal it all. Even stupid AI could get THAT info.

@cstross Hilarious! 😁

@cstross Did the same thing, and recording game soundtracks by holding the headphone against the mic on the cassette recorder

@cstross I used an open reel tape deck and patch cords, but I feel your pain. <image included for those who don't understand>

@cstross You took the "tape" for covering the joins between sheets of gypsum, and somehow applied music to it?

@cstross Every time I read things like this, I wonder whether people really stop educating themselves, reading or simply taking an interest in the world and history after they finish school!

@cstross I know what you mean 😅

@cstross pfft cassette… I used a grundig open real tape machine (I’m not that old I was a strange child)

@cstross Millenials and older gens should stop answering every dumb question they see on the internet

@cstross Can't be real, but funny anyway.

@cstross our local radio station franchise (now a Heart) used to use the tagline "we don't talk all over your favourite songs" and it was *absolutely* aimed at the "press record as soon as the DJ stops talking" market (plus it meant they could leave it on a playlist when they didn't have enough DJs)

@cstross ah, such fond memories of tape recording Top of the Pops tracks from the live radio broadcast, and listening very intently for the technician starting the fade so you could press stop before the presenter's voice came in.

@cstross you remember when radio didn't suck? Wow.

I recently introduced concept, purpose and practice of compiling mixtapes to a twenty-something coworker.

Judging by his expression, I might as well have been explaining medieval siege craft and how to build a trebuchet. 😂

@cstross Wait until she hears we used Nero for burning CDs

@cstross
Some people in the 1930s had 78rpm recording turntables and radio. They are probably all dead now.

@cstross Burning a CD was a light weight ritual, all you need for that is some concentrated heat.

Have you fed the tape? How many tapes did you feed? How many were eaten? How many lives crumbled because of that?

@cstross I grew up in New Zealand and was born in 2001 I remember both making my own cassette tapes and burning CDs from the age of six till I was about 11 and got an mp3 player. When I was 6 or 7 my parents used to pirate movies by renting them on DVD then dubbing them onto VHS (with an ancient VCR because macrovision). we only got internet in the house after the second time the local shopping centre called the cops on me because I used to sit there for hours using the free Wi-Fi when I was 12

@cstross

Tell me that is a joke?

Please?

@cstross a polish colleague of mine told me about recording computer games off the radio. Warbling modem like sounds for half an hour, onto a C30 then into your commode 64, brilliant. I never heard of that in this country.