It is truly incredible how the world of semiconductors has evolved, especially with regard to the miniaturization of components and today we can find fully miniaturized computers in the most unexpected places. The last? They have managed to place a Raspberry Pi Zero W inside the case of an old music cassette.
It’s been a long time since we used cassettes to listen to our music and even longer if we talk about computers. Moreover, the new generations have not used this medium. Let’s not forget that it has been more than two decades since the pocket MP3 players that replaced the Walkman were standardized and since then they have ceased to be used by the majority of the population.
At the same time, we cannot forget the advances that allow more and more complex chips. This not only allows these to get smaller and smaller, but also to make them smaller and smaller. So now we find complete computers in things like a wristwatch or even a set of headphones. There is even a wide community that uses boards like Arduino and Raspberry Pi to get to create hobby things and the last one, honestly, has caught our attention a lot.
A Raspberry Pi inside a cassette tape
Specifically, it is a Raspberry Pi Zero W, the smallest version of the famous Single Board Computer, which has ended up inside the casing of a music cassette. In addition, as you can see, it has not taken up all the space in the casing of the classic music tape. However, the fact place a Raspberry Pi in a cassette it has come with the odd sacrifice in the process.
The idea has been carried out by Stuart Brand who in an interview with the MagPi magazine He has explained what his project has been. His idea, no more and no less, has been to create a system that would allow you to play classic ZX Spectrum games from an emulator. From the moment we talk about one of the simplest 8-bit computers of that generation at the hardware level. So it’s no problem for it to be emulated by something as modest as a Raspberry Pi Zero W inside a cassette. However, as we have mentioned before, its creation has come with some cuts.
The first of them has been that the original board had to be cut so that the Raspberry Pi could enter the cassette. which has caused the loss of some GPIO external peripheral interface pins. In any case, it is not a loss if we take into account what the main utility of this mod is, according to its creator. Which is none other than being able to once again enjoy the classic British microcomputer that was also so popular in our lands. In addition to making it much better, since it is capable of running the emulator in less than 16 seconds.
