PDP-11's DECcasete

From: Craig Smith <ip500_at_roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Thu Mar 16 18:16:06 2000

You rang a bell with the comment about other units using the same
standard, a TI "Silent 700 ASR" data capture terminal is sitting in my
storage shed somewhere----neat panel up above the keyboard with lots of
lights and switches and 2 very fancy looking cassette transports. must
use those same cassettes.
        Craig

Tony Duell wrote:
>
> > DEC claimed that you couldn't use regular audio cassettes with the TU60
> > because they couldn't handle the high tension used by the drive. Sounds like
> > it could be hype but you never know. I mean, what's the point of building a
> > peripheral that uses regular audio cassettes, except that it *doesn't* use
> > regular audio cassettes? Worst of both worlds.
>
> Ah, but it was a 'standard' at the time. I believe ECMA34 is a standard
> for recording data on such drives, but I have no idea if the TU60
> followed it. I suspect it was at least similar.
>
> There's a similar cassette drive mentioned in the P850 user manual of all
> places. And I've seen stand-alone RS232-interfaced drives which could be
> used for data entry or data capture (Facit certainly made these, as did
> dozens of other manufacturers). And I have somewhere a 'Racal Digideck'
> which seems to be an drive module for such tapes.
>
> In other words, DEC were making a peripheral that accepted tapes used by
> a lot of other systems.
>
> -tony
Received on Thu Mar 16 2000 - 18:16:06 GMT