Technology from the 'olden days': P.E.I. students try to play a cassette tape

In the 1970s, the cassette revolutionized the way we listened to music. Just pop it in to the recorder and hit play.

It was cutting edge technology.

Or, as Grade 2 student Summer Britton describes it she tries to pull a tape out out of the recorder, "something in the olden days that you would play music with."

CBC stopped by L.M. Montgomery school in Charlottetown to see what Grade 2 students today think of that old technology.

One of the first things they wanted to do when handed a cassette tape was find a place to plug in the headphones.

"I'm trying to find where this goes in this," said Harry Yeo, one of the three students from trying to figure out how to play music with the cassette.

Sometimes if you put it in something, the tape will start going, and it'll, like, make music. Grade 2 student Summer Britton

It looks familiar to Summer.

"My grandmother has a lot of these," she said, though they don't use their cassette player much anymore because "we have newer radios, now."

But she has an idea how it works.

"Sometimes if you put it in something, the tape will start going, and it'll, like, make music."

First, the kids have to figure out how to open the machine. After pressing every button, the lid on the cassette machine pops open.

Eva Russell unravels the tape she pulled from the cassette. She figures she mighthear music if she stuffs the tangled tape into the machine, and wraps it around the spools.

"We could put the tape around those," she said, pointing.

Cassette's in recorder, now what?

After it's hinted to the kids that the tape should not be unravelled from the cassette, their teacher using her pinky rolls the tape back inside.

The cassette is then slipped into the machine, but still silence.

"We need to find somewhere so that we can start the music," Summer said.

After pressing more buttons, music finally fills the classroom. "It's cool once it gets playing," said Eva, flashing a big smile.

Harry said it's "cool because it's like from the olden days," but he's not impressed the old technology took the kids 15 minutes to figure out.

"Not that great because you have to do all this work just to listen to music," he said.

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