# Cassette Futurism — style guide for coding agents

> Generated from the Aesthetary record for **Cassette Futurism**.
> Research: **Partly sourced** · Build guidance: recorded in 7 of 8 research dimensions.
> 9 sources attached.

## How to use this

Paste this file into your agent as context before asking it to design or build something in this visual language. It states what is established, what is our interpretation, and what nobody has established. Treat all three differently.

**The most important section is "Not researched yet".** Its purpose is to stop you and your agent inventing rules that sound right and are not recorded anywhere.

## What this language is

**Defining:** Beige and amber CRT, chunky physical switches, low-resolution readouts, ruled panels

**Recognise it by:** Beige and off-white plastic housings carrying amber or green CRT readouts, chunky physical switches and labelled toggles, low-resolution dot-matrix type, and ruled panels that divide the surface into bays like a rack unit. The diagnostic condition is the imagined date: this is a future extrapolated from around 1979, so it is analogue-first and beige rather than chrome, and the controls have travel. Terminal is a console — a prompt and typed input on a dark ground — where this is a machine with a fascia. Y2K imagines a future from 1999 and is glossy, translucent and chrome.

**Family:** Speculative & Futurist
**Era:** 1980s, speculative
**Native medium:** film, software

**Scope:** The visual register fans call cassette futurism: bulky, angular 1970s-80s hardware and screen science fiction with physical buttons, knobs and sliders. Beige-and-amber palette, CRT readouts and ruled panels are Aesthetary's reading.

## What it is arguing

The future as it was imagined by people who had only analogue and early digital parts to imagine it with. Controls are physical, readouts are coarse, and the machine is built to be operated by a trained person rather than discovered by anyone.

**It refuses:** Refuses touch surfaces, high resolution, and the frictionless glass grammar of contemporary interface design.

## What it is not

Commonly confused with these. Getting the difference right matters more than getting the surface right:

- Steampunk
- Terminal
- Sci-Fi HUD

**What separates this language:** A future imagined in 1979; beige plastic, not chrome

_This is the record's own distinguishing line, not a comparison against any one neighbour. Where a per-neighbour difference is recorded it appears beside that name above; where it is absent, nobody has written it._

## Established rules

Grouped by what kind of claim each is. A requirement of the language and our own interpretation are not interchangeable.

**How to read each rule.** Every rule states two separate things, and neither stands in for the other:

- **Kind of claim** (the heading): From our catalogue entry · Our reading · Our reading · disputed · Documented · Source attached · Seen in the work.
- **Evidence** (how it is established): Graded by our research brief · No source attached (`DOCUMENTED`) · From our catalogue entry (`SUPPORTED`) · Our reading (`CURATORIAL`) · Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`) · No grade recorded (no grade in the record). Where a claim has its own canonical label, the Evidence line gives that label instead of the grade.
- **Product area**: which of the twelve areas the rule belongs to (Layout, Typography, Color, Imagery, Surface, Interface, Motion, Motif, Technique, Form, Hierarchy, Density), mapped from its raw area label in bold. "Context" means the rule is about the Aesthetic (its name, origin, lineage) rather than a part of the design. "Not mapped" means the raw area has no single area yet.
- The code in brackets is the `grade` field at `implementationConstraints.tokenRules.value.rules[].provenance.grade` in https://aesthetary.com/data/cassette-futurism.json. "From our catalogue entry" means: Stated in Aesthetary’s existing catalogue entry. An outside source is named only where one is linked to the claim.

### From our catalogue entry

_Carried over from Aesthetary's original catalogue entry. The reasoning behind it was never recorded._

- **typography** — Typography: dot-matrix.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Typography
- **color** — Colour: amber on beige.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: Color
- **form / motif / surface / technique** — Form / motif / surface / technique: switches, dials, plastic.
  - Kind of claim: From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry · Product area: not mapped

### Our reading

- **hierarchy** — Rank by bay position and label, not scale. Everything is roughly the same size, as on a real instrument panel; importance is carried by where a control sits and what is engraved next to it.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Hierarchy
- **imagery** — Schematic and diagrammatic rather than photographic, on the reasoning that the register's own surfaces would carry wiring diagrams and labels rather than pictures.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Imagery
- **motion** — Mechanical and stepped — toggle states that snap, readouts that increment in discrete jumps, occasional CRT flicker. Nothing continuous or eased.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Motion
- **layout** — *"Ruled panels"* is inherited and is a real structural claim — the surface divides into bays. Our reading: those bays are fixed and do not reflow, because a fascia is manufactured rather than laid out. We do not claim the register requires a fixed layout; that is our reading of what a fascia implies.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · Evidence: Our reading · Product area: Layout

### Our reading · disputed

- **register** — No scholarly or institutional source defines this term. It is a community coinage for retrofuturist technology of roughly the early 1970s to mid 1990s, and Aesthetary's account of it rests on community usage and on its own observation of the artefacts.
  - Kind of claim: Our reading · disputed · Evidence: Our reading · disputed · Product area: Context (not a design area)

## Found in research

What research established from sources Aesthetary opened and checked. Each line names its area, how it is known, and where it is scoped. "Seen in the work" means the source documents particular works or products rather than the Aesthetic as a whole.

- **Imagery** — Depicted hardware includes cassette tapes, fax machines and CRT monitors.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-1`
- **Imagery** — Alien (1979) used a wireframe 3D rendering to portray navigation computer displays.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:imagery-3` · Covers We Are the Mutants does not use the label; TV Tropes ties Alien to it.
- **Motion** — For Alien, the Atlas lab team made the simulated orbit shown on the Nostromo's screens; on that display the numbers change rapidly while the 'BL: :OB' characters stay on screen.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-1` · Covers Alien (1979) only, from the graphics' maker..
- **Motion** — Alien's production design used physical 1970s display technology alongside film-based special effects.
  - Evidence: Seen in the work · Claim: `kcc:w2-motion-2` · Covers Alien only; the high-resolution versions may be later alterations (see limitations)..
- **Motif** — In Alien (1979) the Nostromo carries a wall-mounted icon system by Ron Cobb, which he named the 'Semiotic Standard'.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-motif-1` · Covers One film. The icons are wayfinding signs; whether they are ornament, and whether the system recurs across cassette-futurism material, is not established..
- **Technique** — Alien's orbit-simulation screen graphics were computer-generated on a high-resolution vector film plotter that output 35mm film.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-technique-1` · Covers Alien (1979) only; the maker's own account..
- **Technique** — Alien: Isolation (2014) reproduced the look for its menu screens: rendered in software, recorded to VHS, played on a CRT, filmed and imported back into the game.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:w2-technique-2` · Covers Alien: Isolation (2014) menus, a revival, not the 1970s-80s source material..
- **Form** — Hardware is bulky and angular.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:form-1` · Covers fan-catalogue descriptions.
- **Form** — Before the iMac G3, computers were conventionally encased in opaque beige boxes.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:form-2` · Covers TV Tropes for the trope; the Henry Ford record confirms beige boxes as the pre-1998 computer norm.
- **Form** — Controls are physical: real buttons, knobs and sliders.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:form-3`

## Positions by area

The overall position recorded for each area. "No overall position recorded" means rules exist for the area but no position above them; the rules still apply. It is not the same as "Not established", which means nobody has researched the area.

- **Layout** — Specified
- **Typography** — Specified
- **Color** — Specified
- **Imagery** — Specified
- **Surface** — Specified
- **Interface** — Specified
- **Motion** — Specified
- **Technique** — Specified
- **Form** — Specified

## Design grammar — web primitives

A starting grammar for a website in Cassette Futurism: an opaque beige housing divided into ruled bays, real keys and switches that travel and snap, low-resolution readouts in dark CRT windows, and nothing glossy, glassy or eased.

Three kinds of line: **On the record** names a rule this record holds (its wording is under Established rules) and states what it becomes on the web. **Web translation** is Aesthetary's choice for the web, derived from the rules it cites; change it if you have a reason, keep the cited rule. **Not specified by the source** means the research reached this but the sources say nothing about it; **Not researched yet** means the research has not reached it yet. Either way, follow the instruction and do not invent a rule. Structured version: `designGrammar` in data/cassette-futurism.json.

### Colour

| Role | Value | Contrast | Use | Kind |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| housing | `#D8CDB6` | — | The unit: opaque beige plastic. | On the record |
| panel | `#E4DAC6` | — | Key caps and lighter panels. | Web translation |
| engraving | `#4A4234` | 7.4:1 | Engraved labels, bay tags, the control strip. | Web translation |
| edge | `#8A7D62` | — | Housing edges, bezels, the key's travel. | Web translation |
| screen | `#1A1408` | — | CRT windows. | Web translation |
| phosphor | `#F5A623` | 9.9:1 on screen | Readout text and lit lamps. | On the record |

Other accents the record supports:

- Green phosphor (recorded as "amber versus green readouts: a declared freedom"): `#6BFF8A`

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:color-5` → Amber on beige.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:form-2` → House the machine in an opaque beige box.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:declared-freedom` → Amber or green readouts: the choice is free.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-1` → No chrome, no glass, no translucency.
- **Web translation** — Keep all colour in two places: the housing and the phosphor. _Why:_ The gestalt is beige housings carrying phosphor readouts; a third hue would read as a later decade. (`claim:gestalt`, `claim:dcc:failure-6`)

### Typography

Family: monospace for engraved labels and text; a bitmap dot face for readouts (both the room's choice). Stack: `"SpaceMonoX", "Space Mono", "Courier New", monospace`

| Role | Size | Weight | Line height | Case | Tracking | Measure | Setting | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| badge | clamp(1.75rem, 4.6vw, 3.25rem) | 400 | 1.05 | uppercase | 0.06em | — | dot face, on a brown plate | The unit's name, once. |
| engraving | 0.75rem | 700 | 1 | uppercase | 0.2em | — | — | Labels on the housing. |
| readout | 1.125rem | 400 | 1.5 | not specified | not specified | 60ch | dot face, phosphor on screen | Text on a CRT. |
| body | 1rem | 400 | 1.6 | not specified | not specified | 68ch | — | Longer text on the beige. |

- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:typography-4` → Set readouts in dot-matrix type.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-2` → No high-resolution type.
- **Web translation** — Engrave labels on the housing in a monospace, capitals, spaced wide. _Why:_ Importance is carried by what is engraved next to a control; engraving is capitals on an instrument panel. (`token_rule:hierarchy-13`)
- **Web translation** — Keep every size close together, as on an instrument panel. _Why:_ Everything is roughly the same size; rank is position and label. (`token_rule:hierarchy-13`)

### Grid and layout

A rack: the surface ruled into fixed bays, each a unit with its tag and its windows. At narrow widths whole bays stack; a bay never reflows its own fascia.

Tokens: bay-gap `18px` · rack-width `1120px`

- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:dcc:layout-3` → Divide the surface into ruled panels, bays like a rack unit.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:hierarchy-13` → Rank by bay position and label, not by scale.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-5` → No reflowing layout in the primary fascia.
- **Web translation** — On a narrow screen stack whole bays rather than rearranging a bay's controls. _Why:_ A fascia is manufactured, not laid out; stacking units is what a rack does. (`claim:dcc:layout-3`, `claim:failure-5`)

### Shape and geometry

Tokens: radius `6px` · radius-screen `14px / 18px` · edge `2px` · travel `5px`

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:form-1` → Make the hardware bulky and angular.
- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `token_rule:surface-8` → Surface: plastic; switches and dials.
- **Web translation** — Round corners only slightly, as moulded plastic; round the CRT window more, as a tube face. _Why:_ The housing is angular moulded plastic; the screen is a curved tube set into it. (`claim:kcc:form-1`, `claim:kcc:imagery-1`)
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-8` → No gloss.

### Imagery

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:imagery-1` → Depict the period's hardware: cassette tapes, fax machines, CRT monitors.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:imagery-7` → Prefer schematic and diagrammatic images to photographs.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:imagery-3` → Screens may carry wireframe 3D renderings: Alien (1979) portrayed its navigation displays that way.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-2` → No high-resolution imagery.
- **Not specified by the source** — A repeating motif or ornament system is an open question. _Instead:_ Do not add one. Alien's Semiotic Standard is one film's wayfinding icons; use it as a reference for labelled signs, not as the register's ornament.

### Physical controls

The machine is operated by hand: real buttons, knobs and sliders, each engraved with what it does. Anything that looks like a touch surface belongs to a later decade.

- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:form-3` → Controls are physical: real buttons, knobs and sliders.
- **On the record · From our catalogue entry** · `claim:surface-8.interface` → Interface: switches and dials.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:intent-negation` → Refuse touch surfaces and the frictionless glass grammar of contemporary interfaces.
- **Web translation** — Show every control's state as a position: a lever up or down, a lamp lit or dark, a key up or pressed. _Why:_ A physical control tells its state by where it sits; a flat control can only change colour. (`claim:kcc:form-3`, `claim:failure-3`)

### Components

Anatomy, tokens and states below are Web translation: Aesthetary's specification for the screen. Each value line after them says whether it restates a rule this record holds.

#### Button

A moulded key: a beige cap with an engraved label that travels down when pressed and snaps back.

- Anatomy: beige cap, 2px khaki edge; a 5px khaki skirt under it (the travel); engraved label in mono capitals; an amber key for the one primary action
- Tokens: background `#E4DAC6 to #C9BDA4` · border `2px solid #8A7D62` · travel `5px` · radius `5px` · minHeight `48px`
- State, default: Cap up, skirt showing.
- State, hover: Label underlined; the cap does not move.
- State, focus: 3px amber outline outside the cap.
- State, active: Cap drops 5px, skirt hidden. One step, no easing.
- State, disabled: Cap flat (no skirt), label in khaki.
- Accessibility: Brown label on the beige cap at 7.4:1.
- Accessibility: At least 48px tall; the travel is shown, not only felt.
- **On the record · Documented** · `claim:kcc:form-3` → Controls are physical: draw a button as a key that travels.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-3` → No touch-style flat controls.
- **Web translation** — Press in one step: the cap drops and snaps back without easing. _Why:_ Toggle states snap and nothing is eased. (`token_rule:motion-14`, `claim:failure-4`)

#### Card

A rack module: a beige unit with two screw heads, an engraved header and bay tag, an LED, and a CRT window for its content.

- Anatomy: beige housing, 2px khaki edge; screw heads at the top corners; bay tag (brown plate) and engraved title; LED at the right; CRT window
- Tokens: background `#D8CDB6` · border `2px solid #8A7D62` · radius `6px` · window `#1A1408`
- State, default: LED lit in the phosphor colour.
- State, hover: Title underlined.
- State, focus: 3px amber outline outside the housing.
- Accessibility: The title is the link's name; the bay tag and screws are decoration.
- Accessibility: Amber on the CRT ground at 9.9:1.
- **Web translation** — Build a card as a rack module with a bay tag and an engraved header. _Why:_ The surface divides into ruled bays like a rack unit; a card is one bay. (`claim:dcc:layout-3`, `claim:gestalt`)
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:hierarchy-13` → Rank modules by bay position and label, not by size.

#### Input

A CRT entry line: the engraved label on the beige, the field a dark screen with phosphor text and a block cursor.

- Anatomy: engraved label above; dark screen field inside a khaki bezel; phosphor text in the dot face; block cursor
- Tokens: background `#1A1408` · color `#F5A623` · bezel `0 0 0 4px #8A7D62` · radius `6px` · height `48px`
- State, default: Dark screen, dim phosphor placeholder.
- State, focus: Bezel turns amber; the cursor blinks in steps.
- State, error: A line below on the screen, beginning "ERROR:".
- State, disabled: Screen off: no text, dark bezel.
- Accessibility: A real label, engraved above the field.
- Accessibility: Errors are words on the screen, not only a colour.
- **Web translation** — Make text entry a CRT line inside a bezel. _Why:_ CRT monitors are among the depicted hardware, and readouts sit in dark windows set into the beige. (`claim:kcc:imagery-1`, `claim:gestalt`)
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-2` → Set the entry in low-resolution type, never high-resolution.

#### Navigation

A row of engraved keys on a brown strip, each with an indicator lamp; the current section's lamp is lit.

- Anatomy: brown strip; keys in mono capitals; a lamp above each key; current lamp lit amber
- Tokens: strip `#4A4234` · key `#E4DAC6` · lamp `#5A4A2A` · lamp-on `#F5A623`
- State, default: Lamp dark.
- State, hover: Label underlined.
- State, focus: 3px amber outline.
- State, current: Lamp lit; aria-current set.
- Accessibility: The lamp is never the only sign: the current key also carries aria-current and a heavier label.
- Accessibility: Keys at least 44px.
- **Web translation** — Navigate with a row of labelled keys and lamps. _Why:_ Switches and dials are the register's interface, and importance is carried by position and the engraved label. (`claim:surface-8.interface`, `token_rule:hierarchy-13`)

### Motion

Durations, easing and the rest of this specification are Web translation: Aesthetary's choice for the screen.

- Durations: press 80ms, one step, readout stepped, about 10 steps a second, flicker occasional, stepped
- Easing: all `steps(1)`
- Transforms: translateY for key travel only
- Entrance: none
- Hover: An instant underline.
- Reduced motion: Keys still show their pressed state; readouts stop stepping and flicker stops.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `token_rule:motion-14` → Move mechanically and in steps: toggles snap, readouts jump, the CRT flickers now and then.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-4` → No easing.
- **On the record · Our reading** · `claim:failure-9` → No continuous motion.
- **Web translation** — Let numbers on a readout change rapidly while its labels stay put. _Why:_ On Alien's orbit display the numbers change rapidly while fixed characters stay on screen. (`claim:kcc:w2-motion-1`, `token_rule:motion-14`)

### Deliberately not added

- **A motif or ornament system** (imagery): An open question. The Semiotic Standard is one film's wayfinding icons; whether it recurs across the register is not established.
- **Density** (gridLayout): Not specified by the source.
- **Amber as a period fact** (color): Amber on beige is the record's inherited reading; the sources name green monochrome CRTs, and amber versus green is a declared freedom.
- **Interface conventions for web pages** (components): The research documents hardware and one film's screens. The four components are translations.

## Coverage — what has been looked at

One row per research dimension a research pass considered. "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) means exactly that; a dimension can carry an Aesthetary recommendation and still be unresearched, and those are different things.

| Research dimension | Evidence | Resolved by | Carries a rule |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Composition | Specified · From our catalogue entry | — | yes |
| Typography | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Hierarchy | Specified · Our reading | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Colour | Specified · From our catalogue entry | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Density | Not specified by the source | Aesthetary decided | no |
| Imagery | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |
| Form / motif / surface / technique | Specified: form, surface, technique · Open question: motif | follows the recorded claim | yes |
| Motion | Specified | Aesthetary decided | yes |

Unresearched: Imagery, Motion. Where a rule appears for one of these it is Aesthetary's implementation recommendation, not a property of the language, and its Evidence line above says so.

## Not researched yet

Nobody has established a position for this language on:

- Motif

**Do not fill these in.** An absent position is absent research, not permission and not a blank for you to complete. If the work needs a decision in one of these areas, make it on other grounds and do not attribute it to this language.

## Grade your own work

19 checks: 8 mechanically testable, 9 needing a person to look, 0 needing a source Aesthetary does not hold, 2 with no recorded position. 1 further research dimension produced no rule (Density). This rubric is silent on it. 1 context rule is listed apart: known about this Aesthetic, not something to check finished work against. Scores do not add up. A failure against a required rule and a departure from something we invented are not the same result, and no total should let them cancel.

### Recognition — does this read as the intended Aesthetic?

- **[visual_human · recognition signature · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Strip every logo, word and borrowed image out of your work, then show it to someone who knows the collection. Do they land on this Aesthetic? The signature to hold is: Beige and off-white plastic housings carrying amber or green CRT readouts, chunky physical switches and labelled toggles, low-resolution dot-matrix type, and ruled panels that divide the surface into bays like a rack unit. The diagnostic condition is the imagined date: this is a future extrapolated from around 1979, so it is analogue-first and beige rather than chrome, and the controls have travel. Terminal is a console — a prompt and typed input on a dark ground — where this is a machine with a fascia. Y2K imagines a future from 1999 and is glossy, translucent and chrome.
  - _If it fails:_ The work may be competent and still read as a different Aesthetic, or as none. Nothing below matters until this passes.

### Fidelity — are its defining rules present?

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Nothing is recorded as a requirement of this Aesthetic. There is no rule here that your work must hold — which means nothing you do can fail this dimension, and nothing you do can satisfy it either. That is missing research, not freedom: our research brief does record failure modes to avoid, listed under avoidance below. They are recorded judgement, not requirements.
  - _If it fails:_ Not applicable. An empty dimension is an absence of research, never a pass and never a failure.

### Implementation — were those rules translated appropriately into this medium?

- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Typography: dot-matrix.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Rank by bay position and label, not scale. Everything is roughly the same size, as on a real instrument panel; importance is carried by where a control sits and what is engraved next to it.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Colour: amber on beige.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Schematic and diagrammatic rather than photographic, on the reasoning that the register's own surfaces would carry wiring diagrams and labels rather than pictures.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing. No one has researched the dimension yet, and this is only what Aesthetary would do. Departing from it costs you nothing.
- **[visual_human · From our catalogue entry · Evidence: From our catalogue entry]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Form / motif / surface / technique: switches, dials, plastic.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Our reading · Evidence: Our reading]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Mechanical and stepped — toggle states that snap, readouts that increment in discrete jumps, occasional CRT flicker. Nothing continuous or eased.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing. No one has researched the dimension yet, and this is only what Aesthetary would do. Departing from it costs you nothing.

### Avoidance — known failure modes, neighbour drift, cloning

- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No chrome, no glass, no translucency.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No high-resolution type or imagery.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No touch-style flat controls.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No easing.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[mechanical · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: No reflowing layout in the primary fascia.
  - _If it fails:_ A failure mode recorded in our research brief: recorded judgement about what weakens this Aesthetic, not a requirement of the language.
- **[visual_human · recorded failure mode · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Have you made any of these changes? Each one moves the work into a neighbouring Aesthetic: Against Terminal: fascia versus console. Against Y2K: 1979 versus 1999, beige versus chrome. Against Steampunk: both are retrofuturist and both expose mechanism — Steampunk imagines from 1890 in brass, this from 1979 in plastic. Anti-signature: chrome or translucency turns it Y2K. A prompt turns it Terminal. Brass turns it Steampunk.
  - _If it fails:_ You have built the neighbour. That may be fine — but name which Aesthetic you are in.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: chrome.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: gloss.
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[mechanical · declared closure · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Check your work against this: Not open: continuous motion..
  - _If it fails:_ This one is closed, not open. The record says generation must not go here.
- **[visual_human · neighbour drift · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Could your work be mistaken for Steampunk? That language is: A future imagined in 1890; never stops reading as costume
  - _If it fails:_ Not necessarily wrong, but you are closer to Steampunk than to this Aesthetic.

### Accessibility — the Aesthetic preserved without its inaccessible practice

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Does this Aesthetic conflict with any usability floor? Nobody has recorded one for it.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing — and that is the problem. An unrecorded conflict is not an absent one. Hold AA on reading matter and decide the rest on other grounds.

### Context — known about this Aesthetic, not a check

Where the Aesthetic comes from, what it is called, how it sits among its neighbours. Use it to understand the work; do not score finished work against it.

- No scholarly or institutional source defines this term. It is a community coinage for retrofuturist technology of roughly the early 1970s to mid 1990s, and Aesthetary's account of it rests on community usage and on its own observation of the artefacts. _(Our reading · disputed · Evidence: Our reading · disputed)_

**Not covered at all:** Density: Not specified by the source. These research dimensions produced no rule, so there is no check. Treat them as unscored, never as passed and never as failed.

## Rules for the agent

1. Do not invent rules for any area listed under **Not researched yet**.
2. Do not treat an absent position as permission to do anything you like — say that the language has no position, and decide on other grounds.
3. Keep our interpretations separable from the language's own requirements. If asked to justify a choice, cite which kind of claim it came from.
4. If you need something this record does not contain, say so rather than producing a confident answer from the aesthetic's name.
5. When you self-score against "Grade your own work", score only checks marked `mechanical`. Declare `visual_human` and `evidence_dependent` checks unjudged rather than guessing, and never score an `unassessable` one.
6. Evidence "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) is never a failure. It means nobody researched the dimension, so departing from what is written there costs nothing and must not be reported as a defect. "No grade recorded" is not a grade either: do not treat it as our decision or as an outside source.
7. In **Design grammar**, a "Web translation" line is our choice for the web and may be changed with a reason; the rules it cites may not. Never present a translation as a property of the language.

## Provenance

- Record: `cassette-futurism` · status `draft` · research `not_researched`
- Full structured record: https://aesthetary.com/data/cassette-futurism.json
- Human-readable record: https://aesthetary.com/a/cassette-futurism.html
- This file is a snapshot. The record may have changed since; check the page above.

_Aesthetary is an alpha. Where a page says nothing, nobody has done the work yet._