I had one growing up, but my parents never bought new carts. I will forever have a slice of NSYNC’s “Bye bye bye” burned into my brain.

Edit: I learned NSYNC is all caps, fixed

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Child Alabaster_Mango couldn’t get enough of the 3 cartridges I had, and plenty around me were envious. Modern day Alabaster_Mango, however, has to live with the consequences. I have NSYNC, Brittney Spears, and Backstreet Boys clips forever taking up space in the ol’ noggin.

Also, after re-listening to my Hit Clips the other day (I still have them) I realized how… Primeval they were? They kind of hit before widespread adaptation of MP3 players, at least in my area. It wasn’t until ~2006 when I got my first MP3 player (iRiver T10) that I realized how good portable sound could be. Don’t even talk to me about CD Walkmans. You could only listen to those things sitting down.

For the nerds like me, here’s someone reverse engineering Hit Clips carts! TL:DR It’s PWM audio hard coded on an epoxy blob.