CRAZY FOR CASSETTES.

Long after most folks have given up on cassettes, I still find them useful. Even better, a few companies continue to manufacture them. One of those is National Audio Company. I found this company a few years ago on the Internet. As cassettes and players grew scarce, I realized I'd better find some and buy them before they were gone. That's why I put in an order for 300 C-95s. Now I have plenty of tapes. I also bought some cassette recorders when they were on sale at a discount store. While not being top end machines, they still played tapes. Additionally, I bought several VersaCorders from C. Crane Company. These record at regular speed as well as quarter speed, making them handy for taping long talk shows. Now that the company has discontinued selling them, I'll have plenty of machines in store for the future. Some friends have mentioned to me that the sound quality of cassettes isn't as good as digital media and that the tape gets mangled easily. I've found that only the cheap tape recorders or old decks that have become misaligned will eat tapes. By carefully winding the tape back into the shell, I can keep on listening to it. CD-Rs also are prone to CD rot. One tiny scratch and the whole disk is ruined. I have tapes from decades ago which still work while some of my CD-Rs from six years ago are inaccessible. Many elderly folks also prefer cassettes. They're easy to play and stop. Additionally, the cassettes start at the exact spot that they were stopped. This is so handy when listening to long talks. CDs won't allow that. A user must scan back and fourth to find the spot where the recording was stopped. I'm also involved with providing programs on tape for a Christian cassette magazine called Vision Tape Ministry. Jack Kinley, the main force behind this free publication, doesn't know how to use computers or how to connect CD players to his cassette machine. I tape sermons from the Internet and send those to him through the post. Many of my tapes have been used as part of the bi-monthly publication.