Remembering the Microcassettes and Floppy Disks

If you can remember the glory days of microcassettes and floppy disks, then you have nostalgia for a bygone era.

It's an incredible feat that floppy disks are still being used well into the 2020s, with the Japanese government being the latest user to end floppy disk usage in 2024.

Microcassettes are also another item from a bygone era that's still being admired by people who have nostalgia for the past, and the same can be said for minicassettes. In fact, they are still being used well into the 2020s, even if microcassettes and minicassettes are considered obsolete by today's standards.

Microcassette

If you want to know what the Parting Tape from Hey! Pikmin is, it is actually a microcassette. Not to be confused with a compact cassette, which appears in the game as the Sonic Relaxant.

Microcassettes are audio storage devices that are smaller than compact cassettes. They were created in 1969 as a smaller alternative to the compact cassette for audio recording. However, many factors, including new technology made the microcassette obsolete by the late 1990s, and by the time Hey! Pikmin was launched for the Nintendo 3DS, it would make sense for audio cassette tapes, including microcassettes, to be categorised as forgotten "treasures" that Olimar and his Pikmin encounter, because audio cassette tapes have become obsolete due to new technology.