Ryan McDonough

Founder, Sometime Artist

CFO and co-founder @Accompany, acquired by @Cisco. Turnaround CFO @Ning, sold to Glam Media. Former seed VC. McKinsey trained. @Wharton School and @Haas School of Business.

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TINKERING

Cassette Touch Player

A cassette player with a different kind of tape. At first glance, it looks familiar—something pulled from another era. A tape. A player. Physical controls. But the cassette is a touchscreen.

LEGO Polaroid OneStep SX-70

A cassette player with a different kind of tape. At first glance, it looks familiar—something pulled from another era. A tape. A player. Headphones with just enough foam to feel right. But the cassette isn’t a cassette. It’s a touchscreen, running a full MP3 player behind an interface designed to feel physical.

Modes

Recent Upgrade: JLab Rewind 2 Wireless Retro Headphones

The goal wasn’t accuracy. It was believability.

The shell is a modified Pantasy cassette player, reworked to house a compact Android MP3 player—the same core used in my NES cartridge build. The illusion is simple: keep everything familiar on the outside, and let the behavior do the rest.

 

More than a music player.

Open the lid, and it plays music like you’d expect. But a swipe reveals more—clock, weather, alternate “tapes.” Close the lid, and it all stays visible through the window, like the device is still doing something quietly in the background.

Nostalgia on the outside.

Something else underneath.