It’s easier than you think to turn audiocassettes into digital files

Chances are you’ve got a pile of audiocassettes stashed somewhere in your home that are so old they can qualify for Social Security.

It may be time to bring them into the 21st century by digitizing them. Fortunately, it’s not hard to turn those analog cassette tapes into decent-sounding audio files that are playable on any computer, smartphone or tablet.

You’ll need just a few things right off the bat: a working cassette player, the right cable to connect it to the audio input of your computer, a free audio recording app called Audacity and a box of old cassettes.

Start by downloading and installing Audacity. Then figure out which port on your computer is used to import audio. It might be a light blue 3.5-mm input on the back of your PC. Mac users will likely find it’s combined with their headphone jacks.

You’ll have to do a bit of research on the type of audio input you have.

Once the cassette player and your computer are connected, launch the Audacity software and start the cassette player to see whether they’re talking to each other and are happy.

If you want to make things a bit easier, look for a cassette player with a USB interface that you can plug directly into the USB port on your PC or Mac for easy recording.

— The Dallas Morning News