Yeah, I remember having a Sony dual cassette portable player with a 1/8 in 'sound on sound' plug so I'd record off my Yamaha keyboard with the cheesy drums and bass lines and then swap cassettes, plug a big ole adapter into a microphone and record a rhythm guitar, then swap tapes again and record some G. lead/vox, etc. got the job done! But, wow computers are so much easier!
And when I was about 13 I had this big mustard yellow cassette player that had a speed select, throw in my Van Halen and try to figure out how the hell Eddie was making that sound..I think the player came from a classroom or something, it had 'room 14' painted on the side.