Lost formats

Dimensions: 4 x 2.5 x 0.4 inch
Storage Capacity: 60, 90 and 120 min.
Manufacturer: Norelco (Philips)


Know what this is? It’s a 2-dimensional image of a compact cassette which was (and, in some places, still is) used to store music. Once, this type of media for recording and storing music was popular, but now, with the digital revolution in full swing, the compact cassette is (almost) dead.

According to Experimental Jetset’s website, the compact cassette was “introduced in 1966 as a convenient way of recording and playing music in home and car. In 1982 it overtook the LP’s dominance after Sony’s popular Walkman was introduced, but was surpassed by Philips’ CD (compact disc) in 1993.” Of course, a great deal has changed since then and, as things are, even the CD will soon disappear into oblivion.

You don’t need great brains to know this, and may even find this information redundant and irritating, but you may be (at least, I was) surprised to learn that an Amsterdam-based graphics studio, called Experimental Jetset, is doing all it can to preserve for posterity what it calls ‘lost formats’ such the compact cassette.

Experimental Jetset seems to have 64 such ‘lost formats’ in their archive at present. These 'lost formats' can be found on their website.