The Commodore Datasette Gets an '80s Boombox Makeover

Those who are old enough to remember the early era of personal computing will never forget loading software from cassette tapes. But unlike the classic games that provided countless hours of entertainment, there was nothing good about cassettes — well, aside from the fact that they were cheap, anyway. If it wasn’t for the outrageous costs at the time, everyone would have used a disk drive instead.

Because they were never really much loved, cassette drives don’t get much use from enthusiasts today. They tend to sit on a shelf, while a modern flash drive does the real work of storing and loading data. Jan Derogee thinks this is a shame, so he found a way to repurpose the classic Commodore 1530 Datasette. Derogee turned a Datasette into perhaps the most obvious thing aside from a storage device: a boombox.

Despite being a cassette tape player, the Datasette cannot play audio. That meant Derogee had some work ahead of him if he was going to build a boombox. He began by comparing Japanese- and Taiwanese-manufactured versions of the device and found that their internal layouts differed significantly. The Japanese model offered more unused internal space, making it the ideal candidate for the transformation. Rather than drilling holes into the vintage plastic or making permanent modifications, he designed a set of custom 3D-printed parts that attach using the existing structure of the enclosure.

To create those parts, the bottom half of the Datasette shell was placed on a flatbed scanner. The resulting image was imported into FreeCAD, where Derogee used it as a template for designing speaker housings, a battery compartment extension, and a retro-style carrying handle. The parts were 3D printed in PLA, which took about 10 hours.

The audio system consists of a pair of slim 8-ohm speakers, a small audio amplifier board, a DC-to-DC boost converter, four AA batteries, and a rotary volume potentiometer with an integrated power switch. The cassette head output is routed through the volume control and into the amplifier, allowing music recorded on standard cassette tapes to play through the new speakers. The boost converter provides stable voltage for both the amplifier and the cassette transport mechanism.

A custom handle, mounted using a cut-to-length threaded rod as a hinge axle, completes the classic boombox look. Once all of the electronics were carefully tucked into the available space inside the chassis, the enclosure was reassembled using the original screw locations.

If you have a Datasette sitting around on a shelf, Derogee’s hack may be the best way to make it useful once more. Not only will you get a boombox out of the deal, but the process is completely reversible. No Datasettes were harmed in the making of this project.