Kodak Electronic Camera from 1975

[William Hamblen]

http://www.retronaut.com/2012/06/kodak-digital-camera-1975/

It might be analog rather than digital, but the tape cartridge does say
"Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts".

Bud

[David Griffith]

That's a normal audio cassette. DEC had the TU60 for reading and
writing digital information. I imagine it was similar to how cassettes
were used with early home computers.

--
David Griffith
davidmy...@acm.org <--- Put my last name where it belongs

[Bill Leary]

"William Hamblen" wrote in message
news:eIednWbXKc0OUxXN...@earthlink.com...

> http://www.retronaut.com/2012/06/kodak-digital-camera-1975/
>
> It might be analog rather than digital, but the tape cartridge does
> say "Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts".

I've got one of those tape drives around here. Somewhere. I picked it up
at a surplus store long ago. It even has one of those tapes in it. I was
never able to find out what it was from until now.

- Bill

[philo]

I remember reading about that and did not see the point of a digital
camera. Too bad for Kodak that they wasted countless millions on several
failed film formats and cameras. Had they run with the ball while they
were ahead, they'd be much better off today.

I still have my first digital camera ...a Kodak...that I purchased 12
years ago. It's virtually indestructible. It's been dropped several
times on a concrete sidewalk and it's just bounced. No damage whatever!

--
https://www.createspace.com/3707686

[Walter Banks]

Kodak early on recognized that film's days were numbered and tried to
diversify their business. Their early camera used a video format on
tape. Around the same time they also created an analog video camera
(probably weighed 15 pounds) that they took to trade shows.

There were several other early camera's that were analog. One of them
(I will try to track down the specific details from a friend who owned one)
used a small disk that recorded analog data for each image. The image
size was 200/300 or so. It used standard SLR lenses. Disk drive was
built into the body used small disks to store a few images. He paid several
thousand dollars for it

My first digital camera was a Casio QV-10 (which I still have) About
200 by 300 pixels 96 images internal storage. Used 4 AA batteries to
take 90 pictures.


w..

[Stan Barr]

On Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:32:22 -0500, philo <" philo"@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> I still have my first digital camera ...a Kodak...that I purchased 12
> years ago. It's virtually indestructible. It's been dropped several
> times on a concrete sidewalk and it's just bounced. No damage whatever!
>

I've still got my first digital camera, an Apple Quicktake (1994??),
everyone thought I was mad wasting my money on something that would
never catch on :-)

--
Cheers,
Stan Barr plan.b .at. dsl .dot. pipex .dot. com

The future was never like this!

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 25, 9:32 am, philo <" philo"@privacy.net> wrote:

> I remember reading about that and did not see the point of a digital
> camera. Too bad for Kodak that they wasted countless millions on several
> failed film formats and cameras. Had they run with the ball while they
> were ahead, they'd be much better off today.

We forget that it wasn't until relatively recently that electronics
became cheap and small enough to concentrate enough digital
'horsepower' in a camera to take _quality_ pictures. Think about what
kind of PC you could buy in 1990 vs today with inflation-adjusted
dollars--and how much technology has improved since 1990. (Since 1980
it was a huge leap). Digital photography in 1990 was limited to high
end specialized applicatoins.

To this day Kodak still makes a few still films, though of course
nothing like the past*. It also still makes a surprising variety of
motion picture films.

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Products/index.htm

Changing a "film format" is merely changing the cutting blades and
spooling, not that expensive.


*I have a catalog of Kodak b&w printing papers from the 1980s--they
had an amazing variety of high quality papers, each with multiple sub
categories for many different kinds of applications, as well as
various processing chemicals. That's all been discontinued. Must
have been a huge write-off in terms of plant and equipment, though I
think they make paper for digital printing now.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 25, 1:16 pm, Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

> I've still got my first digital camera, an Apple Quicktake (1994??),
> everyone thought I was mad wasting my money on something that would
> never catch on :-)

We knew back then digital had many advantages over film and would
catch on. It was only _when_ technology would advance to the point to
be cost-competitive with film and be as convenient to use*.

Heck, Super 8 home movies were made obsolete by analog home video
cameras in the 1980s. (Yet Kodak still makes several kinds of Super 8
movie film; see above link).

I presume in time even Hollywood feature films will be 100%
electronic--imaged in digital, transmitted to theatres in digital, and
projected in digital. Not quite yet, though.


*When the IBM PC when they came out, even a plain one without a hard
drive was expensive; the XT was very expensive. But a wait of just a
few years introduced the 286/VGA and clones which were less expensive
yet more powerful.

[Charles Richmond]

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message
news:8704872f-3f8d-4239...@4g2000yql.googlegroups.com...

On Oct 25, 1:16 pm, Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
>
>> I've still got my first digital camera, an Apple Quicktake (1994??),
>> everyone thought I was mad wasting my money on something that would
>> never catch on :-)
>
>We knew back then digital had many advantages over film and would
>catch on. It was only _when_ technology would advance to the point to
>be cost-competitive with film and be as convenient to use*.
>
>Heck, Super 8 home movies were made obsolete by analog home video
>cameras in the 1980s. (Yet Kodak still makes several kinds of Super 8
>movie film; see above link).
>
>I presume in time even Hollywood feature films will be 100%
>electronic--imaged in digital, transmitted to theatres in digital, and
>projected in digital. Not quite yet, though.
>

My sister works in editing in the movies. She worked on the recent film
"The Dark Night Rises". It was done on *real* film. The *last* movie
processing lab in LA stayed open just to do the developing work on this
film. Chris Nolan, the director, wanted to work on *real* film. But you
can't buy Kodak 35mm movie film or splicing tape anymore. They had to put
ads on Craig's list to buy Kodak splicing tape from folks who had hoarded
the stuff.

Digital production and editing have taken over. It has *already* happened.

--

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 25, 6:14 pm, "Charles Richmond" <numer...@aquaporin4.com>
wrote:

>But you
> can't buy Kodak 35mm movie film or splicing tape anymore.  They had to put
> ads on Craig's list to buy Kodak splicing tape from folks who had hoarded
> the stuff.

Unless I read their website wrong, Kodak still makes a variety of
motion picture films (see separate cite).

[Quadibloc]

Nope. It's digital. A DECtape II.

John Savard

[Christian Brunschen]

In article <538f155b-a30f-43aa...@m4g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,

To me, it looks very much like an audio cassette in shape, and not like a
(similar but different) DECtape II.

In fact, if you look very closely, the tape not only look just like an
audio cassette, but has the text "digital equipment corporation - maynard,
massachusetts" and "1.0 MIL CERTIFIED DIGITAL CASSETTE" on it.

I think this is a digital cassette tape in the same form factor as an
audio cassette, as used in a TU60, whose manual:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/decCassette/DEC-00-HTU60-C-D_TU60maint_Oct73.pdf

includes the text:

"It is extremely important that only DEC, 100 percent certified, Digital
Tape Cassettes be used on the TU60 tape drives. The "heavy base" tape
within the Digital Equipment Corporation Cassettes was specifically chosen
to be compatible with the high drive tensions of the TU60. In addition,
the head pressure pad material of the cassette has been carefully selected
to allow proper tape stacking. For optimal operational characteristics,
the dynamics of each tape drive require the use of only Digital Equipment
Corporation Cassettes.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE AN AUDIO CASSETTE ON THE TU60 TAPE DRIVES. Since the
tape within an audio cassette is not designed to tolerate the high drive
tensions of the TU60, use of this type cassette will result in extremely
rapid deterioration of the tape and subsequent failure of the drive due to
excessive tape oxide deposits on the read/write head and tape guides."

So the TU60 seems to use tapes that are physically the same as audio
cassettes, but have higher-spec tape for digital use; and it seems that
this is what the camera uses: something with the form factor of an audio
cassette but with a higher-spec "certified digital" tape.

>John Savard

Best wishes,

// Christian Brunschen

[Elliott Roper]

In article <k6e4rq$rjj$1...@dont-email.me>, Christian Brunschen

The brand name on the tape read/write assembly is "Memodyne" A quick
Google shows that company made a variety of tape drives for data
logging applications.
One of those hits - a Google Books scan - includes the phrase "500
words/sec". So at least some of them presented a digital face to the
world. The cassette in the picture is almost certainly made for a TU60,
which itself presented an 8 bit wide parallel data path. It wrote to
tape serially, phase encoded.

The "microcomputer" in the picture is Motorola's answer to Intel's ICE
box debugging and development monster. That ribbon cable to the back of
the tape drive assembly is almost certainly plugged into a socket that
contains a 6800 or 6809 micro. The EXORciser gives you breakpoints and
single stepping and probably more, I can't remember.

--
To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$
PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248

[William Hamblen]

On 2012-10-26, Elliott Roper <nos...@yrl.co.uk> wrote:
>
> The "microcomputer" in the picture is Motorola's answer to Intel's ICE
> box debugging and development monster. That ribbon cable to the back of
> the tape drive assembly is almost certainly plugged into a socket that
> contains a 6800 or 6809 micro. The EXORciser gives you breakpoints and
> single stepping and probably more, I can't remember.
>

The microprocessor in 1975 would be a 6800. The 6809 came out in 1978.

Bud

[Elliott Roper]

In article <t9CdnXVkpLLkSBHN...@earthlink.com>, William

Heh! Something else I didn't remember. I did a couple of jobs with each
of them. I thought they were rather nice little machines, like a PDP-11
that had run out of money.

[Michael Black]

On Fri, 26 Oct 2012, Christian Brunschen wrote:

> In article <538f155b-a30f-43aa...@m4g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> William Hamblen wrote:
>>> http://www.retronaut.com/2012/06/kodak-digital-camera-1975/
>>>
>>> It might be analog rather than digital, but the tape cartridge does say
>>> "Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts".
>>
>> Nope. It's digital. A DECtape II.
>
> To me, it looks very much like an audio cassette in shape, and not like a
> (similar but different) DECtape II.
>
> In fact, if you look very closely, the tape not only look just like an
> audio cassette, but has the text "digital equipment corporation - maynard,
> massachusetts" and "1.0 MIL CERTIFIED DIGITAL CASSETTE" on it.
>
> I think this is a digital cassette tape in the same form factor as an
> audio cassette, as used in a TU60, whose manual:
>
> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/decCassette/DEC-00-HTU60-C-D_TU60maint_Oct73.pdf

The early hobby interfaces all used audio to record to a standard audio
cassette recorder.

But later, articles appeared in the magazines were DC was directly applied
to the audio heads, saturation recording. It never caught on, but
apparently had been used in more expensive/traditional computers.

I think one small computer or two used it, but I'm not sure. I thought
the Exatron stringy floppies (microcassettes in special drives), that came
later used saturation recording.

Michael

[Michael Black]

I know someone who's the producer on Jonathan Goldstein's "Wiretap" on the
CBC.

I bumped into her father a couple of years ago, and asked about her, and
he said she was busy with the show, and I said "oh yes, splicing all those
tapes". He got it, being a documentary film maker, but I wondered if
she'd have gotten it. I'm sure she's not tape splciing now, and I can't
think of any reason she'd have had to splice tape in her life, which
started in 1984.

The only reason I've had to splice tape was to make shorter cassettes for
things like saving computer programs circa 1980.

Michael

[danny burstein]

In <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org> Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> writes:

>>>
>>> Nope. It's digital. A DECtape II.
>>
>> To me, it looks very much like an audio cassette in shape, and not like a
>> (similar but different) DECtape II.
>>
>> In fact, if you look very closely, the tape not only look just like an
>> audio cassette, but has the text "digital equipment corporation - maynard,
>> massachusetts" and "1.0 MIL CERTIFIED DIGITAL CASSETTE" on it.

....

>> cassettes, but have higher-spec tape for digital use; and it seems that
>> this is what the camera uses: something with the form factor of an audio
>> cassette but with a higher-spec "certified digital" tape.

I don't know, in fact I doubt it was... but a key difference
later on beween standard "audio" (or, for that matter, video)
tapes and the data ones was that...

... was that the audio/video ones were "locked", so to speak,
into the spools so that the tape would remain in place.

The data ones, on the other hand, were just loosely lying
on the spindles, and if the drive didnt detect the little
foil tab saying "please stop now", the tape would actually
come off the spindle and fly loosely over to the takeup.

- the reason for this was to prevent any stretching of
the tape, which would cause errors in trying to read them.

I know this was standard by 1985 or so when I was doing
tape backups. I don't know about earlier.

--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Morten Reistad]

In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>,

The Commodore PET had a cassette station that was digital, robust and oh so slow.
This one could also be used on the vic and 64, this was actually the interchange
data format among the commodore machines.

There was even an adapter for the game port in an IBM PC, but ISTR this was
by a third party.

The commodore cassette used MFM at 300 bps, and this worked on almost
anything. You could have drivers for up to 4800 bps rll, but then you had
to run with interrupts disabled and on very good cassettes. But several games
loaded like this, first a pre-loader loaded via commodore's interchange format,
and then the game itself.

-- mrr

[Bill Leary]

"Morten Reistad" wrote in message news:lev4m9-...@wair.reistad.name...

Thanks. I was trying to recall the very popular machine that used digital
drives.

And your mention of Commodore just caused me to remember the Colico Adam
also used digital drives.

The drives used with The Digital Group computers were also digital. In
addition, their drives were fully controllable and could support seeking.
But I'm not sure I'd have called their computer "hobby" machines.

- Bill

[Christian Brunschen]

In article <k6npp8$olc$1...@reader1.panix.com>,

danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:
>In <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org> Michael
>Black <et...@ncf.ca> writes:
>
>>>>
>>>> Nope. It's digital. A DECtape II.
>>>
>>> To me, it looks very much like an audio cassette in shape, and not like a
>>> (similar but different) DECtape II.
>>>
>>> In fact, if you look very closely, the tape not only look just like an
>>> audio cassette, but has the text "digital equipment corporation - maynard,
>>> massachusetts" and "1.0 MIL CERTIFIED DIGITAL CASSETTE" on it.
> ....
>>> cassettes, but have higher-spec tape for digital use; and it seems that
>>> this is what the camera uses: something with the form factor of an audio
>>> cassette but with a higher-spec "certified digital" tape.
>
>I don't know, in fact I doubt it was...

Well, it certainly seems - from the available documentation - that things
are essentially as I conclude.

Let me quote again from the TU-60 manual (at
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/decCassette/DEC-00-HTU60-C-D_TU60maint_Oct73.pdf):

"
1.2 CASSETTE RESTRICTIONS

It is extremely important that only DEC, 100 percent certified, Digital
Tape Cassettes be used on the TU60 tape drives. The "heavy base" tape
within the Digital Equipment Corporation Cassettes was specifically
chosen to be compatible with the high drive tensions of the TU60. In
addition, the head pressure pad material of the cassette has been
carefully selected to allow proper tape stacking. For optimal operational
characteristics, the dynamics of each tape drive require the use of only
Digital Equipment Corporation Cassettes.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE AN AUDIO CASSETTE ON THE TU60 TAPE DRIVES. Since
the tape within an audio cassette is not designed to tolerate the high
drive tensions of the TU60, use of this type cassette will result in
extremely rapid deterioration of the tape and subsequent failure of the
drive due to excessive tape oxide deposits on the read/write head and
tape guides.
"

This clearly states that the "Digital Tape Cassettes" use a "heavy tape"
that "was specifically chosen to be compatible with the high drive
tensions of the TU60". In the next paragraph, the manual warns "DO NOT
ATTEMPT TO USE AN AUDIO CASSETTE ON THE TU60 TAPE DRIVES". This would not
be possible unless the tapes are substantially similar in form factor.

So the tape used in a TU60 is in substantially the same for factor as a
standard audio cassette (in fact a later section warns against using the
digital cassettes for audio - which also would not be possible unless they
were physically substantially similar), but uses a special "heavy tape" to
handle the high drive tension. And it so happens that in the picture of
the camera
(http://www.kodak.com/US/images/en/corp/1000nerds/steveSasson/1_Camera.jpg),
there is a tape that looks very much like a standard audio cassette, but
marked "digital equipment corporation" as well as "Certified Digital
Cassette" - which rather strongly suggests that the cassette in the
picture is precisely the kind of digital cassette tape with "heavy tape"
that is described in the manual for the TU-60 tape drive.

>but a key difference
>later on beween standard "audio" (or, for that matter, video)
>tapes and the data ones was that...
>
>... was that the audio/video ones were "locked", so to speak,
>into the spools so that the tape would remain in place.
>
>The data ones, on the other hand, were just loosely lying
>on the spindles, and if the drive didnt detect the little
>foil tab saying "please stop now", the tape would actually
>come off the spindle and fly loosely over to the takeup.
>
>- the reason for this was to prevent any stretching of
>the tape, which would cause errors in trying to read them.
>
>I know this was standard by 1985 or so when I was doing
>tape backups. I don't know about earlier.

The Kodak camera in question was in 1975, so 10 years earlier than the
experience you're relating to. Anyway, the manual (linked to above, and in
my earlier post) contains lots of information including drawings and the
layout of the tape.

Best wishes,

// Christian

[Shmuel Metz]

In <s5mdnb6A-OFFvw3N...@giganews.com>, on 10/30/2012

at 02:56 PM, "Bill Leary" <Bill_...@msn.com> said:

>And your mention of Commodore just caused me to remember the

>Colico (sic) Adam

What a fortuitous typo (-;

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>

Unsolicited bulk E-mail subject to legal action. I reserve the
right to publicly post or ridicule any abusive E-mail. Reply to
domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+news to contact me. Do not
reply to spam...@library.lspace.org

[Walter Banks]

Bill Leary wrote:

> > The commodore cassette used MFM at 300 bps, and this worked on almost
> > anything. You could have drivers for up to 4800 bps rll, but then you had
> > to run with interrupts disabled and on very good cassettes. But several
> > games
> > loaded like this, first a pre-loader loaded via commodore's interchange
> > format,
> > and then the game itself.
>
> Thanks. I was trying to recall the very popular machine that used digital
> drives.
>

> And your mention of Commodore just caused me to remember the Coleco Adam
> also used digital drives.

Ahh Coleco Adam the cabbage patch computer. The drives in this computer
were interesting and so was the support software. Coleco Adam was
restricted to having the central processor to a Z80 running at less than
1Mhz (Color burst crystal / 4). The solution to this problem was to distribute
the processing primarily to the peripherals.

The tape drive had a 6801 in it that did most of the work including access
to the file system. Data was stored in blocks (256 bytes) with relatively
large inter-block gaps. It was possible to count blocks as the tape slewed
at high speed. The design allowed a reliable rewriting blocks of data on
a tape. The tape processor did most of the file system and directory
management.

Tapes were formatted with directories either at the center of the tape or at
the beginning depending on the intended use. Part of the block header
indicated which format was used. The indicators used were the initials of
the two programmers who did most of the work on the tape system.
GRW (Gerry Wheeler RIP) was one of these programmers who did
most of the low level software in Waterloo. Gerry also wrote the micro
code on the ADAM printer.

At the time ADAM was developed prototype interfaces were developed
for 5 1/4 disk drives and a couple 3 inch floppy disks and for the stringy
continuous tape drives. There was a rough prototype of a 100 Mb removable
disk drive using technology similar to that used on ZIP drives. The tape
was the only system initially released because of manufacturing or licensing
costs. Later a 5 1/4 drive was released, much too late for any real impact.

Walter..

[Bill Marcum]

On 10/30/2012 08:57 AM, Morten Reistad wrote:
> There was even an adapter for the game port in an IBM PC, but ISTR this was
> by a third party.
>

The original IBM PC had a DIN socket for a cassette recorder. I think
TRS-80 computers used the same plug, and the cassette only worked in ROM
BASIC. I don't think any PC software was sold on cassettes.

[Michael Black]

Yes, the original IBM PC had a cassette interface. And I suspect you're
right, very little software was on cassette. The computer came out late
enough that floppy drives had dropped in price, and there seemed to be
more of an expectation that one used a floppy with the IBM, if nothing
else since it was more expensive it likely was used more for "serious"
things initially, and thus the floppy drive could be justified.

But I read Morten's comment to mean someone had cooked up an interface to
connect the IBM to the COmmodore external "tape drive", via the game
port. That makes sense, sort of, since it provides DC level outputs to
control the deck and to send and receive data in digital form. People
often used the game interface in the Apple II for interfacing things in a
similar manner. Of course, you had to convert parallel to serial via
software if you used the gameport, though at the time I suppose that
didn't matter much. When I used OS-9 on the Radio Shack Color Computer
(which had a stock serial port, but the "uart" was software), it was kind
of amusing, I'd send something to the printer, then move to another
window (or was it called a console?) and use a text editor. The parallel
to serial software slowed things down so much that I could see the cursor
move around the page in the text editor console.

Michael

[Bill Leary]

"Bill Marcum" wrote in message news:k6rgev$vvn$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

> On 10/30/2012 08:57 AM, Morten Reistad wrote:
>> There was even an adapter for the game port in an IBM PC, but ISTR this
>> was
>> by a third party.
>>
> The original IBM PC had a DIN socket for a cassette recorder.

Yes, but it used an ordinary audio cassette tape recorder/player.

> I think TRS-80 computers used the same plug, and the cassette
> only worked in ROM BASIC.

I don't know about the connector, but the TRS-80 was also an audio cassette
recorder. I think you're correct about it only being supported in the ROM
basic.

> I don't think any PC software was sold on cassettes.

I have a vague recollection of their being a couple of titles available when
the machine first came out. But pretty much everyone bought at least one
floppy when they bought an IBM.

- Bill

[sidd]

In article <alpine.LNX.2.02.1...@darkstar.example.org>,
Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

>But I read Morten's comment to mean someone had cooked up an interface to
>connect the IBM to the COmmodore external "tape drive", via the game
>port. That makes sense, sort of, since it provides DC level outputs to
>control the deck and to send and receive data in digital form. People
>often used the game interface in the Apple II for interfacing things in a
>similar manner. Of course, you had to convert parallel to serial via
>software if you used the gameport, though at the time I suppose that
>didn't matter much. When I used OS-9 on the Radio Shack Color Computer
>(which had a stock serial port, but the "uart" was software), it was kind
>of amusing, I'd send something to the printer, then move to another
>window (or was it called a console?) and use a text editor. The parallel
>to serial software slowed things down so much that I could see the cursor
>move around the page in the text editor console.

heeeheee this brings bak memories
commodore hadda a gpib clone inteface for disk
one coule be purchased for ibm pc
and hp 9830 and 9845 and such

much hilarity ensued
when all were connected together
including disk drives and plotters
and gpib-camac intefaces
and many other things

sidd

[Michael Black]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012, Bill Leary wrote:


>> I think TRS-80 computers used the same plug, and the cassette
>> only worked in ROM BASIC.
>
> I don't know about the connector, but the TRS-80 was also an audio cassette
> recorder. I think you're correct about it only being supported in the ROM
> basic.
>

It gets complicated. If I remember properly (and I never had one), the
original MSDOS BASIC made use of the ROM, calls and hooks allowed for some
of it to be reused. Which of course then meant that anyone who used
PC-DOS on aonther computer didn't have BASIC, until "MS-DOS" came along
with a BASIC that was standalone.

I don't know where that leaves the cassette interface. Perhaps it did
allow one to use the cassette interface alongside the floppy interface, or
maybe not. On the Radio Shack Computer, the floppy controller included
a ROM that extended the BASIC in ROM, so you could use the cassette
interface too.

It doesn't really matter, if they had a floppy drive they
wouldn't bother with cassettes. Everything was fine until you moved
foward, at which point you never wanted to go back.

Michael

[Michael Black]

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012, Morten Reistad wrote:


> That was another analogue interface to a bog standard audio interface.
>
> A small, nerdy FM radio station in Oslo actually broadcast some
> games by piping the saves from a PC straight on the air.
>
> It worked amazingly well.
>
Jim Warren campaigned (inicluding a newsprint type newsletter) for
sending computer programs over subcarrier on FM radio stations. I can't
remember if anything ever came of it.

It was an interesting time, as radio and tv slowly started to cover the
new field, and wanted to do things like that. The famous sheet record in
Interface Age that carried programs that could be loaded into a computer
via the cassette interface connected to the record player, later some
scheme to transfer programs via the tv screen (Computer Chronicles on PBS
used that for a bit). I thought there were more schemes, but at the
moment I'm blank.

It seems odd now, the way we live, but back then it seemed pretty neat.

Michael

[jmfbahciv]

Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <k6rgev$vvn$1...@speranza.aioe.org>,

> That was another analogue interface to a bog standard audio interface.
>
> A small, nerdy FM radio station in Oslo actually broadcast some
> games by piping the saves from a PC straight on the air.

Now that is kewl.

>
> It worked amazingly well.
>
> However, the CBM/PET/VIC/C64 etc interface is a fully digital
> one, with 5 pins; ground, +5v, motor, read, write, and key-sense.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette
>
> And it interrupts once per bit.

OMG....That means I'd have crocheted an entire afghan to load
an EXE.

/BAH

[Walter Banks]

Paperbytes Byte Magazine.

w..

[lawr...@gandi.cluon.com]

Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> writes:
> Jim Warren campaigned (inicluding a newsprint type newsletter) for
> sending computer programs over subcarrier on FM radio stations. I
> can't remember if anything ever came of it.
>

There was a group that was trying to syndicate a computer-nerd radio
program in the mid-80s -- I remember their booth at WCCF 1985? 86? They
had an STA with a few stations (including one bay area station) to do
over-the-air data at the lightning speed of 4800 bits per second
(because they used the entire audio channel to do it, and wanted to keep
the periods of "noise" to a minimum).

I think the number of shows they ran could be counted on one hand. :(

--NK1G

[Gene Wirchenko]

On 1 Nov 2012 13:43:56 GMT, jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote:

[snip]

>OMG....That means I'd have crocheted an entire afghan to load
>an EXE.

Feach!

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Walter Bushell]

In article <PM0004CD6...@aca357df.ipt.aol.com>,

By the way when was the restriction on .EXE files raised from 32K?

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[jmfbahciv]

Gene Wirchenko wrote:
> On 1 Nov 2012 13:43:56 GMT, jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>OMG....That means I'd have crocheted an entire afghan to load
>>an EXE.
>
> Feach!

Swoosh! [emoticon's pigtails flying behind head] Explantaion, please?

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

I didn't know there was a restriction. What machine are you asking
about?

/BAH

[Stan Barr]

The BBC did some transmissions on VHF-FM and sent computer programs as
a flashing square in the corner of the tv screen while a computer show
was on air.

--
Cheers,
Stan Barr plan.b .at. dsl .dot. pipex .dot. com

The future was never like this!

[Ken Wheatley]

On 2012-10-30 20:21:16 +0000, Christian Brunschen said:

> <<Snipped>>
> Best wishes,

Burroughs used cassettes on a few machines for things like MTRs and
boot routines. There's a phone of the console of a B1700 with its
cassette drive some way down at http://www.silogic.com/PEPE/PEPE.html.

[Jan van den Broek]

2 Nov 2012 16:19:07 GMT
Stan Barr <pla...@dsl.pipex.com> schrieb:

[Schnipp]

>The BBC did some transmissions on VHF-FM and sent computer programs as
>a flashing square in the corner of the tv screen while a computer show
>was on air.

IIRC the same was done on "Computer Club", a mid-90's program on
the German WDR.
--
+------------------------+ "Life is just a situation
| Jan van den Broek | Life is just a game
+------------------------+ Life is just a whirlpool
| balg...@xs4all.nl | And it's calling out my name"
+------------------------+ - The Residents, Amber

[Gene Wirchenko]

I meant that it would be a feature! The program would be loaded,
and you would have a nice afghan out of the deal.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[jmfbahciv]

Ah, thanks. Except I'd be extremely antsy even if I'd kept my fingers
busy with a crochet hook.

/BAH

[Bill Pechter]

In article <538f155b-a30f-43aa...@m4g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>William Hamblen wrote:
>> http://www.retronaut.com/2012/06/kodak-digital-camera-1975/
>>
>> It might be analog rather than digital, but the tape cartridge does say
>> "Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts".
>

>Nope. It's digital. A DECtape II.
>

>John Savard

Nope... that's a Cassette tape... not a TU58 tape.

I think TU60.

bill
--
--
Digital had it then. Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-pechter.dyndns.org http://xkcd.com/705/