RE: goodbye to 2002

[Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>]

<<On Wed, 1 Jan 2003 18:33:49 -0500, "Paul Hopfgarten" <paul@03038.com> said:

> Actually, my wife's 2000 Corolla has a Cassette Player as standard
> equip...so there may be some (granted not for long..with CR-RW becoming
> commonplace) mid to low end vehicles that still have a tape player as the
> standard equipment.

Actually, I think the market has become exactly reversed: the cassette
deck is an option for more-expensive trim packages, and CD player
comes standard.  My '02 Accord EX has a 6-disc changer and a cassette
deck; the '01 Accord LX that it replaced had a single-disc CD player
and no cassette (although the faceplate mask is shared between the two
models, so there was a big empty spot on the old radio where the
cassette would have gone had I had the more expensive model).

I think the assumption is that purchasers of the more expensive
vehicle are more likely to listen to books on tape or other
pre-recorded material that has not yet made the transition to CDs.
(Not sure whether I believe this is actually true or not.)

-GAWollman