Recording Connections

I have an old type radio, Cassett Tape player, and turntable combination with only a single earphone jack. I am wanting to download this old type music into my laptop computer and make CD back ups. what type of connection do I need and is it possible to accomplish what I want to do. I’m Old so keep it simple.
In appreciation
Tom

You posted in a portion of the forum where we can’t tell anything about you, but assuming a Windows computer, you can do something like this.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/UCA202.jpg

You use a cable similar to this…

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/RCAMiniStereo.jpg

To go from the player to the USB adapter. The device is a Behringer UCA-202. If your player has the larger headphone connection rather than the smaller one, you may need yet another adapter such as this…

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062468

Some laptops allow a direct connection between your player and the laptop with a cable like this…

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/stereoJumper.jpg

If all you have is a Mic-In or a setup that looks like this…

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/PCLaptopSound.jpg

Then you need the UCA-202 or similar device. You would think you could use the Mic-In, sometimes called the Mic Line-In, but you can’t.

There are several tutorials and papers written on this.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/windowsRecording.html
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tutorial_-_Copying_tapes,_LPs_or_minidiscs_to_CD

Koz