tape drives

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Thu May 17 20:39:01 2001

Some guys who wrote their own audio tape handling software put separate records
with gaps between them on their tapes, then put a marker of some sort, i.e, a
burst of a frequency only recognizable as the tape move in "fast" mode, which
could then be recognized the way the APS function on audio tapes works. This
was, of course, only useful on drives with solenoid controls or with some other
speed control, but it did work. The Coleco ADAM (?) or some other similar setup
used a computer-controllable drive. That could have been exploited in such a
way as to allow multiple programs to be recorded on the tape.

Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Strickland" <jim_at_calico.litterbox.com>
To: "classiccmp" <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 4:54 PM
Subject: tape drives


> The commodore tape drive system apparently put a header at the start of each
> file. You could fast forward through the tape manually until you got to about
> where the file you wanted was. Of course, most of us just bought 10 minute
> computer grade tapes and put one program or whatever on each side...
> --
> Jim Strickland
> jim_at_DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
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Received on Thu May 17 2001 - 20:39:01 BST