Who had one of these hooked up to the discman in their car back in the day? Velcro secured.
Posted by timmytoads@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 192 comments
AlienDelarge@reddit
I still used one until very recently with my phone. I never used many CDs in the car though since that tended to damage the discs especially on gravel roads. I mostly did radio or tape until I got an MP3 player.
SourcePrevious3095@reddit
I had that, no velcro, just a padded box in my seat.
_haha_oh_wow_@reddit
Shit, I had mine hooked into an MP3 player (an old Sony) too!
---username_--@reddit
THEN...put this into the 8 track adapter.
cupcakesparklies@reddit
Had the discman velcroed to the center console :)
iamthemetatron85@reddit
Discman, phone, synthesiser... Good times.
MicMacMagoo82@reddit
Who had on hooked up yesterday?
Murphy_Dropkick410@reddit
I was about to say.. "back in the day"?!
My dude it was just this morning. 😅
momolala@reddit
1999 Jeep Cherokee that requires this to play Pretty Hate Machine and all the other cassettes that still roll.
postinganxiety@reddit
Whenever I hear that album name I immediately hear Tori Amos in my head…”made my own, pretty hate machiiiiine”
shebreathes@reddit
A worthy album for the task. ✊
gwmccull@reddit
I was just using mine a few minutes ago. I recently found out they make a Bluetooth dongle that attaches to the cassette adapter
4llu532n4m3srt4k3n@reddit
Yep, 99 town car with it sitting in the stereo now
BrainFartTheFirst@reddit
My tape player doesn't work so I have to use an FM transmitter. 2003 Mercury Grand Marquis!
Revolutionary_Gas551@reddit
Me! 01 Ram with the CD/cassette! Works great hooked up to my iPhone! I have the one that plays over the radio in my work car, too. 🤣🤣
Confident_Win_5469@reddit
My daughter currently has a version of this to connect her car to bluetooth.
Sea-Ad3724@reddit
I had talked my parents into upgrading my cars sound system to allow cds and my oldest sister clued them into this nifty little adapter so they didn’t have to spend all that money. I’m still salty about it 😂
nicgk@reddit
Hooked this up to a portable DVD player Velcro’d to my dashboard. 12 hour roadtrip meant LOtR trilogy every Christmas in surround sound.
tookMYshovelwithme@reddit
So you just listened to it like an audio book?
archimedes750@reddit
This thing was connected to my Zune (which I still have but doesnt power on).
amusedmisanthrope@reddit
I had one in high-school and then swapped the tape deck for one of those cd players with the detachable face. I think the cd play cost more than the trade-in amount I got for the car when i eventually upgraded.
Doun2Others10@reddit
100% had this
throwaway8675309999s@reddit
Had one in my 2000 Xterra (pre installed tape deck with CD combo)
SomewhereLive5921@reddit
So I have an 03 Camry now. I work from home, so I would be wasting money on a newer car. This car will last forever and still drives like a dream. The only problem is that it has no aux and the CD player doesn’t work. Last week I ordered a cassette Bluetooth receiver and it fucking rocks! No more than radio (unless I’m in the mood for WXPN
202reno@reddit
I still use one in my 05 Camry. I’ve had it for 20 years.
Reasonable_Ladder673@reddit
Never thought about securing with velcro. That's a good idea.
Harley297@reddit
Before mp3 players I would download music off Napster, plug this into the speaker jack on the computer and the tape end into a dual cassette boombox and record the mp3s playing on winamp to cassette. I was so proud. Looking back, it perfectly captures the in-between of our generation.
EastwoodRavine85@reddit
I loved having random accessories and connectors and figuring out how to Mickey Mouse hooking up stuff. You had a winner, very creative lol
Fuck I miss Radio Shack
Glittering-Most-9535@reddit
This is RadioShack, you’ve got questions we’ve got answers, how can I help you?
DizzyIzzy801@reddit
I would like to buy B batteries please.
Glittering-Most-9535@reddit
Do you have your Power Zone card?
HomelessKitchenCat@reddit
Roscoe_P_Trolltrain@reddit
are you like an engineer now or anything?
plamisplam@reddit
Same except for me it was after Napster went legal, MiniDisc, and MP3 players were already a thing (but a lame thing! 128M cards and they were expensive!)
IndigoStef@reddit
Bet you made great mix tapes!
OneSchott@reddit
I thought I was poor. We were burning TONS of cd's
AppropriateTouching@reddit
It really slapped the llamas ass.
Ecksray19@reddit
Whipped, but yeah
cswimc@reddit
Swap winamp for VLC and I literally just showed my son last week how to do this using a Sony TCM-20DV. I literally only did this for the fun of it and to expose him to 'old tech' from when I was a kid. I took it a step further and played with connecting a UGreen Bluetooth transmitter to the headphone jack and then playing the cassette wirelessly via a bluetooth speaker. It was one of those "...we were so preoccupied with whether we could, we didn’t stop to think if we should" deals.
LeftHandStir@reddit
You nailed it.
Jaded-Owl8312@reddit
Holy shit this is genius and I can’t wait to go try it
Author_Dent@reddit
Are you me? This might be the most ingenious thing I’ve ever done!
HeyCarpy@reddit
Man, I love this thought process. The love we used to put into our mixes was real.
Massive_Biscotti_850@reddit
My method was even more rudimentary. I took my dad meeting recorder device thingy with the little tapes. Recorded mtv and then took it to school and listened to it during class with my ear on the back pocket of my backpack.
bascule@reddit
People in high school thought I was some kind of wizard when they would give me a playlist and I'd go download MP3s off mp3.lycos.com via FIP or IRC then give them a mix tape
laxhoser@reddit
Absolutely genius
WarMachineAngus@reddit
I am annoyed that I never thought of this. Well done.
graveybrains@reddit
And then, for a while, I just had it plugged in to my mp3 player.
MicMacMagoo82@reddit
A very niche hack indeed. Love it.
FireBug77@reddit
Oh hellya! Then i got a 256MB MP3 player to replace my Philips Expanium discman before moving over to an ipod. Still with the same radio and cassette converter.
rem1473@reddit
Bonus points if you had one of these shoved into an 8 track converter.
Kalfbalf@reddit
Velcro? It sat on my knee to reduce to the impact of bumps
cantwejustplaynice@reddit
I had this exact adapter in my tape deck and yes, my Sony Discman was vecro'd to the dash. I drove a poo brown '83 Mitsubishi Sigma and the only thing in that car that worked properly was the Discman.
CarfDarko@reddit
How about hooked on a HI-MD?
22 cd's on a mini disc, what is not to love?!
Misky-@reddit
I have a really old car and I use a Bluetooth version of these. Works great! Only occasionally needs a charge
Dark_Tint@reddit
I put Velcro on the bottom of the CD player and stuck it to the floor under the radio, it worked great.
sundae_jewel93@reddit
i remember those days. now i just pivot between streaming and burnout from too many playlists. good times.
ModeatelyIndependant@reddit
I worked at a Starbucks in 1999 that still had this non-standardized tape system that wouldn't play a regular tape for our store music. BUT you could put one of these in. SO at closing time we were jamming Slipknot instead of corpo bullshit. It eventually broke and got replaced with a really shitty propietary optical disc system, that wouldn't play regular audio CD.
MichiganMayhem1981@reddit
Had an amp hooked up to house speakers in the trunk as well. The good old 90's
Glittering_Ocelot_67@reddit
some_body_else@reddit
My dad was an early adopter of this. Before anti-skip, he had a bouncy arm little platform thingy that attached to the passenger side floor. The discman sits on the platform and bounces when hitting bumps. 6/10 it kinda sucked but did work better than placing it in the passenger seat or the driver's lap. By the time I was driving we had anti-skip.
AdministrativeLeg152@reddit
But who had a 8-track adapter for cassette to a cassette adapter for CD?
Kelvin_Inman@reddit
I had the adapter that would broadcast your CD player on a FM channel, because my tape deck in the car was busted.
Greymeade@reddit
I could never get those to work properly.
Worldly-Fishing-880@reddit
The promise was always let down by the (staticky) reality
Major-Tension-674@reddit
The key was finding a station that was strong and going one or two notches either way on the dial so it was barely audible and high jack that one.
Can’t tell you why it worked but it did.
n10w4@reddit
ha! I remember this.
rex5k@reddit
I got The Bluetooth version of that.
tiredpapa7@reddit
Once those existed that’s what I did because my car didn’t have a tape deck!
TheDanecdote@reddit
Dang almost forgot about that device!
Plantersnutz@reddit
No Velcro
Acceptable-Cake-7848@reddit
Still have one for my 2005 Prius. Now its connected to an iPhone, not a discman, but same.
XCIXproblems@reddit
💯
DamarsLastKanar@reddit
I had a discman connected to a.... FM transmitter.
You bet your ass, Radio Shack.
I drove an '88 Caravan that, of course, had no tape deck. : D
queuedUp@reddit
I'm actually surprised by the number of people who still use fm transmitters.
I know this because I listen to 88.1 a lot on the radio and being at the bottom of the dial it seems that is where a lot of people have their transmitter set.
Sitting on the highway I'll hear phone conversations, podcasts, various shitty music selections. It's really annoying
MukYJ@reddit
I still use one. The radio from 2006 in my Jeep doesn’t have Bluetooth or any modern aux inputs. I could plug in an iPod, but only if it has a dock connector.
ImJacksAwkwardBoner@reddit
And it would inevitably scramble during the best part of the song.
MukYJ@reddit
I had one of these for my ‘83 Mustang, as well as a cigarette lighter power adapter so I didn’t have to constantly replace batteries. CD player was indeed Velcroed to the carpet in front of the shifter. Still have the adapter and CD player in a box somewhere in the garage.
ATX_Native_77@reddit
Im using one right now plugged into a Bluetooth receiver.
NEStacular@reddit
And bookshelf speakers in the back seat
Haemwich@reddit
Used this in the 04 Sedona for my iPod
NotUrDadiBlameUrMoma@reddit
Dang, I had the same one!!
Phantasm831@reddit
Mrincognito1@reddit
Worked really well in my 1989 Accord
Gonzok@reddit
Dude.. 40 mpg
J_Robert_Matthewson@reddit
From the years 1997 - 2005, I wore out 5 of these and 3 discmen. In 2005 I got my first Creative Zen 20Gig player and proceeded to wear out 2 more tape adapters before my car died and I replaced it with one that had no tape deck and had to get a radio transmitter instead, which was far inferior (especially on road trips where my preset "empty" station might suddenly get a signal.)
RoachedCoach@reddit
I had a Creative Zen Micro. I loved that thing.
laxhoser@reddit
A fellow Creative Zen owner! Mine was lovingly called 'The Brick'
Blackbird136@reddit
Loved my Zen. It’s still around here somewhere, probably still works. TBH I much preferred it to the iPod I got 8-ish years later.
Oldpuzzlehead@reddit
Got my first digital player in 2005 also, iPod mini. 21 years later it is still working.
R34ct0rX99@reddit
Ive got a bluetooth version right now in my car.
Sryn@reddit
Early naughties I drove a mid 90’s car with a cassette stereo. Early naughties were also the time of mobile phones with audio jacks. Shame that Sony phones that time stuck to their audio dongle ways. Sounds great, but still. Also that time I didn’t have music streaming. So basically now and again I went thru the whole process of transferring music to my phone. Had some CD’s, mostly my 90’s collection but I’m partial to sampling stuff from online like SoundCloud or Internet Radio stations.
maceo107@reddit
100%
Negative-Wrap95@reddit
Yup. Portable CD player with hook side velcro on the rear center hump (behind the center console) plugged into the cigarette lighter socket with the wires routed between the console and the seat rails.
Given the low mounting point of the cassette deck in a Sunbird it was a very discrete way to play CDs in a car.
burgundyblue@reddit
I had a boombox loaded up with D batteries sitting in the front seat of my car. Until I finally bought a stereo lol
Fun-Grab-9337@reddit
I used this a lot in the start of the bluetooth era as well as it was much more solid/reliable.
m0nstrz@reddit
When I worked at Circuit City someone was looking for one of these but for a CD player...
vinnyj5@reddit
I had this connected to my iPod.
Sw4nR0ns0n@reddit
ki11a11hippies@reddit
I had one hooked up to a CD player with a reasonable buffer, but discman? Who had discman money?
Riala4@reddit
That thing got me cross country in a UHaul!
applespicebetter@reddit
So I had to use a company car for a long term project we were on about 4 years ago that involved a 2 hr drive one way, twice/week. The company car I was issued? A '94 Volvo sedan. With a tape deck. So I, on a whim, stopped in at Reny's (this was in Maine) and Christ Jesus whaddya know, they had brand new tape adapters right next to tiny Bluetooth receivers and car lighter USB power adapters! So I bought one of each, happily slapped all that riggin' together in that tired old girl I was drivin' and had a grand old time catchin' up on my readin' right there on route 3 the rest of that whole year!
JaxxisR@reddit
Back in the day?
I had one a couple of years ago.
facw00@reddit
I used one these as recently as 2013, to connect my phone (and before that, my iPod) to a 2003 car in that awkward spot where it didn't have an aux in or Bluetooth.
But yes before that, I used it with my Discman, and it was pretty terrible, 3 seconds of ESP didn't cut it for car vibrations.
Torkin@reddit
Hell yeah!
MortgageRegular2509@reddit
Still using one in my 98 GMC, yo!
Goldenage333@reddit
I had one of these in high school. My car had a tape player and I had a discman hooked up with one and then a power adapter that plugged into the cigarette lighter. It was the best being able to play your cd’s in the car.
ImJacksAwkwardBoner@reddit
This, with a disc man, on a hoodie to absorb some of the bumps in the road to keep it from skipping… with 300 CDs in the visors, yes visorS, top and bottom. Those were the days.
tafbee@reddit
Yep. In my beige 1990 Ford Tempo!
smokewagon47@reddit
“Anti skip” my ass
GnarlyLeg@reddit
Oooh, fancy bastards with Velcro to hold the discman down!
SuperShredder687@reddit
Mine wasn't velcroed down. Just sat in the cup holder.
MerriweatherJones@reddit
I used one on my original IPod.
A_Thirsty_Pagan@reddit
The backroads we partied on put that anti-skip function to work!
sator-2D-rotas@reddit
Yes, but no Velcro. Discman and zippered CD on the passenger seat.
Puzzled-Priority-352@reddit
Well not exactly a disc man but like the version I could afford with the bass boost turned on and that anti-skip function doing absolutely nothing
AppropriateTouching@reddit
This is back in the day? Fuck I'm old.
EmoNinja11@reddit
The eject button broke on my truck so it was this or the radio for many years. The second gen iPod nano click was so loud compared to some songs, it could hurt you if you weren’t careful.
VectorB@reddit
Had? what do you mean by HAD?
You better not have ganked my adapter.
aliencardboard@reddit
MisfitBulala@reddit
Yeah. Up until my 07 Honda fit… I got in 09.
bookofgray@reddit
I still do, one of my cars is a 2000 Ford Ranger. Just easier to plug that bad boy in with a tiny dongle for my phone at this point
Glittering-Most-9535@reddit
No idea how this worked, and I don't want to find out. It was basically dark magic as far as I was concerned.
Peanut_The_Great@reddit
Too bad, cassette tapes have the analog sound information recorded as a varying magnetic field on the tape which the player reads as the tape passes over a detector head and converts back to sound. The aux adapters just take audio input and convert it to a magnetic field signal which the player reads exactly as if it was a normal cassette tape.
Glittering-Most-9535@reddit
So it IS dark magic!
MaruSoto@reddit
Plugged into a Minidisk player that could read MP3 format. Was the best portable music player available for a very long time.
timthemajestic@reddit
Yuppp. Rocking my brand new Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Fugees, No Doubt and Alanis CDs!
MoveCompetitive5742@reddit
i had one in my car but replaced the factory radio with one with a CD player.
richtohr@reddit
Man Velcro, why didn’t I think of that.
FUWS@reddit
I did and eventually moved on to the thing that hooked up to my OG android HTC phone to the antenna so I can listen to mp3s via FM channel
electropriest@reddit
And now I have a Bluetooth cassette for my car deck. :)
BreakfastBeerz@reddit
Kept a winter parka on the seat next to me, it was the only way to keep it from bouncing hard and making it skip. In-dash CD players that didn't skip....were mind-boggling.
HeyCarpy@reddit
Those Panasonic shockwave CD players were like black magic. They changed the game right after I got my drivers license.
TerribleProfit@reddit
Quick grab it before we hit that speed bump and it skips!
Far-Adhesiveness-740@reddit
Back in the day?! How about 2016!
dirtjiggler@reddit
still have one now
moles-on-parade@reddit
https://i.redd.it/zj6wk4csxlwg1.gif
MCA2142@reddit
MartyK3000@reddit
I used one of those w/ my iPod classic in my 2003 VW Jetta as of like 2010-2011.
xt0rt@reddit
Hell I had one hooked to my Thinkpad running winamp in my passenger seat.
Hawvy@reddit
Had this in my mini van for my cd player. True MVP of its time
minnesotarulz@reddit
I had one hooked up to my 20 gig dell digital jukebox
gizmobuddy@reddit
My Chevy Cavalier only had am/fm :-(
Thankfully I lived in the Boston area so I had WAAF and WCCC on the tuner.
FlyingAnvils@reddit
My father in law used one up until last year in his 2003 Tacoma to power his Sirius radio receiver.
HunterRidgeFarm@reddit
Guilty as charged in my Pontiac Tempest haha
toogd4urgramma@reddit
Had this connected all the way up until 2015
LadyAiluros@reddit
Dad didn't understand why I needed to velcro mount the Discman (or whatver CD player I had) on the ashtray where I could reach it. Like, I need to be able to change the CD on long trips y'know!!!
When I dold that car, the door to the tape deck was permanently partially open from having the cable hanging out for so long lol.
Enxer@reddit
Until I replaced my 2001 Accord two years ago, it still used the cassette tape adapter for my Sirius Stellito 2.
Dmbeeson85@reddit
Velcro?! You're fancy!
PunkDoubt@reddit
Found this (but Panasonic) digging through some old stuff recently.
full_of_ghosts@reddit
I kept using one well into the MP3 player era.
RV327@reddit
Tape deck converter plugged into boom box cd player on passenger seat plugged into power inverter from cigarette lighter. Boom 1999 Honda civic keeping it real
2kewl4scool@reddit
I would have a lot of use for one of those again right now. Loved having one in my ‘94 Taurus
WilliamMcCarty@reddit
I drove a 1979 Caddie. Only had 8 track.
I had an 8 Track to Cassette adapter...into which was plugged the cassette to CD adapter. And then a mp3 player.
I frankensteiend the shit out that sound system.
yamahowzer@reddit
My friend had an old Chrysler with an 8-track and both a 8-tape and tape-cd adapters
Traditional_Ad_1547@reddit
The Velcro would have been nice, lol. My discman just slid back and forth on the vinyl bench seat. Man, Imiss that little truck.
texan01@reddit
Bold of you to assume I ever got rid of mine!
It's in the glovebox of my 77 right now, on standby for whenever the bluetooth cassette adapter dies, or I have an actual discman in the car.
zSmileyDudez@reddit
I still have mine - same as the one shown here 😂
soundtrackloops@reddit
i do this now with a mini discman in an old pickup truck
_ficklelilpickle@reddit
Ohhh yes. I had the discman in the centre console and the wire for this was tucked up under where the carpet meets the centre console plastic. Stealth baby.
The discman had amazing antiskip quality and I kept it vertical to assist with that even more.
optimaloutcome@reddit
Shortly after high school my buddy inherited his grandmother's 1981 Cadillac El Dorado. It still had the original 8-track player in it. He found an 8-track to cassette converter and we put one of these in it to connect his discman to the car stereo. We were kings.
bascule@reddit
I did except I had a Rio Volt which played MP3 CDs, which I burned like 5 or 6 of with different genres so I could swap them for different moods
Funkdamentalist@reddit
I remember getting my first Discman with anti-shock technology and being amazed at the size of bumps I could go over without the CD player skipping
howlmouse@reddit
The cassette adapter was also set into an 8-track adapter
mistah_sinister@reddit
Still do. My 2001 Nissan Maxima has a tape deck. Except I connect the adapter to an iPod.
STBurner432@reddit
I have a Bluetooth one now. Sounds terrible but gets the job done in a pinch.
ALT3NPFL3G3R@reddit
Of course I did. Until I bought my JVC Chameleon... Good Days
Broken-Sarcasm-Meter@reddit
Still got one for my Dad’s 2004 CRV.
rjcpl@reddit
Velcro? Passenger’s job was to be shock absorber to prevent skips.
Heidrun_666@reddit
yeeeah, two of'em, since one gave out one day.
Puzzleheaded_Race_90@reddit
Definitely used one, as well as the one that transferred over radio. These were rough
Ok_Breakfast5425@reddit
I had one of those radio things back in the day, it was terrible. Got a fancy new one that connected via Bluetooth and then transmitted over FM for my last car so I could stream music in the car and it was miles better than the one I had in the 90s
Puzzleheaded_Race_90@reddit
My brother currently has one like that, and it's...OK. I think the radio one i had last was during the iPad days. I kinda miss my ipod, now that I mention it
Revolutionary_Gas551@reddit
Who has one of these hooked up to their iPhone 14? 🤣 (me lol)
NOFX_4_ever@reddit
It worked on my first iPod too!!!
Capable_Swordfish701@reddit
Used one of these with my first ipod in the car. Once the ipod replaced my disc man with no lid that was rigged to play anyway.
ONROSREPUS@reddit
Yep its all I could afford. Couldn't get the in-dash to poor.
broncobrutus_dynamit@reddit
The hook part of the Velcro stickied onto the bottom of the cd player, to attach to the dash mat. That was living the dream there.
Maximum-Aardvark9467@reddit
I still don't understand this wizardry.
burnitdwn@reddit
used one of those with my diskman, and then used it with my mptrip cd mp3 player that I got when they first came out in like 99ish i think... finally could fit a dozen albums on a single cd, so, my 12 disk visor mounted cd tray actually held around 150 albums in semidecent quality. I think I was doing 192kbit rips back in college. Started in 96 with the 128kbit fraun codec from the command line. It used to take my cyrix p200 CPU a full hour to encode each song from pcm wav to mp3 with the -hq setting.
DrMcJedi@reddit
Somewhere in a junkyard, there is a 1994 Gro Prizm with one of these stuck in it…
crazycatlady331@reddit
I used that in 2017 when I drove the old Forester. Still had a tape deck and I used it wtih my iPod classic.
Vegaprime@reddit
Such a game changer but I needed a passenger to lap ride it or it constantly skipped.
ElusiveWhark@reddit
In the between times
whiskeytown79@reddit
I had one of these in my '02 Maxima at one point in the early 2010s. I wanted to play music from my phone but the car only had a tape deck, am/FM stereo, and CD changer in the trunk.
I eventually found a thing that plugged into the CD changer interface and connected to my phone via Bluetooth though, so that ended up replacing it.
night-swimming704@reddit
Just the other day I picked up a couple older CDs that I enjoyed when I was younger but aren’t available on streaming. I was all excited about playing a cd while driving again until I realized my vehicle doesn’t have a cd player. I thought, “I dealt with this in high school and used one of those cassette tape adapters” and started thinking about where to get one. Then I realized I don’t have a cassette player either….or a portable cd player. I ended up ripping the CDs and adding them to iTunes.
lifeat24fps@reddit
I still don't understand how these worked. But they worked!
LiveInTransit@reddit
Mine went from 8 track adapter to that adapter to dismantle being held by my buddy to keep it from skipping. ‘83 Chevy S-10
MonkeyChoker80@reddit
I had my discman plugged into one of these, and then this was plugged into a ‘Cassette Tape to 8-Track’ converter, and then that musical turducken was plugged into the car’s 8-track player.
Emotional_Fortune78@reddit
Hahaha I listened in way too many cd's this way while driving. "Deeper Euphoria" anyone?
me_do_not_exist@reddit
I had the discman in a lunchbox so nobody would steal it!
limelight022@reddit
Had it in my 85 cavalier but only for a really short time- I remember not really finding a good spot to set the cd player down so I just used the cassette player. I'd just record the CD to cassette because i wouldn't have to mess with all the wires, chance of theft, where to put it and chance of theft.