I decided I just really want a little CD/Cassette/Radio boombox again. As happy as I am to finally have a couple of turntables again, vinyl is a little more expensive than CDs. Plus I can totally buy an album on Bandcamp and then burn my own CD -- that's not so easy with vinyl.

Anyway.

Back in the early 90's, my Mamaw (who we lived with) had 2 boomboxes and I would borrow one, take it to our dining room, put on some headphones and sit there and play video games.

I have memories of playing Super Castlevania IV and Mega Man X while listening to Michael Jackson's Dangerous. (I'll never forget how real the intro to Black or White when the 'Dad' starts pounding on the door sounded.)

Only problem is, I couldn't quite remember what my Mamaw had. We didn't take a lot of photos and any albums my grandmother would have kept were probably tossed by my aunt after she died.

What I did remember was the Sony had a single cassette on the front with a soft release and it had the Mega Bass button, but no obvious "bass port". The CD drive was on the top, along with the cassette controls. The body was black, and had a generally "rounded rectangle" shape.

I flipped through pages of results on eBay last night and I can't tell you how happy I am to have stumbled on the Sony CFD-12. That's it -- that was 1 of my Mamaw's boomboxes!!

Now for the second boombox, I remember it wasn't a Sony. It was a similar shape and vintage though. I remember it had some form of equalizer on top instead of a bass boost. I also remembered the main body was gray, and it had a dual-cassette deck.

To my memory it would have been either a Panasonic or an RCA. I also remembered the CD drive being centered on top. This one was harder to find. Panasonic took me down a rabbit hole of "not quite but almost". But then I switched to RCA and found it in minutes! There's the 3 band equalizer right on top!

I found both models I remember my Mamaw having thirty years ago!