Photos of a late 80's cassette deck

Nice post. I have a couple of chromium tape decks used at a recording studio. They still work.

Looks sooo cool,......I remember reeling -- unreeling cassettes and spilling tape all around playing with it earlier. 

Pro Tip: The reel tape is shiny for sunlight and scares peacocks from the veggie farm. (that's the only now lately)

The electronics don't look very high end now - there's been a lot of progress in some ways in the last 30 years 

The audio path of a cassette deck is fairly simple. No strange frequencies or high demand on the bandwidth. Bias requirements well defined and easy to implement.
The Dolby circuits were somewhat involved, but manufacturers had to source those from a limited set of licensed integrated circuits providers anyway.
On my deck, there are two Dolby ICs, both manufactured by Sony.

This tape deck has two heads combined in a single housing: a record and playback part.

It allows to monitor the recording real time. You can listen to what's being written on tape.
It doesn't (opinion :) ) give better playback sound. But when recording, it makes it easier to set up recording level and fine-tune the bias. It's easier to make a good recording.

That said, any cheap digital device does a better, easier and more consistent job at that anyways. 
Like driving an old-timer. Any modern car does a better job. But not necessary with the same fun.

I didn't buy it at its prime. I got this one in 2012, for either 12 or 18 €. 

LUXMAN was a respected name in cassette players.