What is the overall most cost effective hardware/software for transferring my precious casettes to my PC? I have a good ASUS motherboard with good built-in sound card. Do I need an analog to digital converter? Are there stand-alone systems for this?
Thanks

my poor man's version is to go from tape to minidisc, digital out from minidisc to digital-in to stand alone CD burner{my back-up)to microsoft "in" via mp3. The minidisc is great for coming back and editing tapes and records between songs.

The cheapest easiest way to do this is to take an RCA to Mini stereo cable and connect your cassette deck to the Line-In jack on your computers soundcard. Then simply use an audio capture software like Nero's .wav editor or even Windows built-in Sound Recorder to record your cassette. This method is cheap and it works but it won't sound as good as having an external firewire or USB audio input.
I personally use Goldwave to record and edit sound files like the ones you will be working with.

I had a SoundBlaster Audigy that had RCA inputs and it was a PCI sound card...not too terribly expensive either....however if you look around you could probably find a 99 dollar USB interface with RCA inputs and have a pretty dang good way into your computer with it (the interface would probably also come bundled with some good free starter software for editing as well_.

http://www.myspace.com/mortal_engines