Post B69fXSahcKy9yipi1g by jmax@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by jmax@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #B69VqOLGdjoklF0B9M by mntmn@mastodon.social
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       are there any open source hardware cassette decks yet? i have a faint memory of seeing something here a while ago, at least a tape head+mechanism... also, how much digital data could be recorded on them with modern DAC/ADC/DSP?
       
 (DIR) Post #B69WUDVEMLp8j7eUxk by jannem@fosstodon.org
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       @mntmn Hah, that reminds me: many years ago there was a video camera that recorded video on cassette tape. You'd fit around 5 minutes of video per tape.
       
 (DIR) Post #B69WpvRCCoMl4O7HXs by mntmn@mastodon.social
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       @jannem hah, wouldn't that need to wind the tape really fast?
       
 (DIR) Post #B69XiDicSAJzPA9j1M by vogelchr@chaos.social
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       @mntmn if I'd have to guess, I'd start with the end of modem technology in the days... which got us 33.6kBit using a 8bit DAC/ADC (telephone) at 3kHz bandwidth.Cassettes have wow and flutter (tape speed variations), but probably a few bits more dynamic range, let's say this cancels out.Frequency went up to 15kHz or so, so 5 times as much.So, my guess would be that about 175kbit/s would be a reasonable estimate.
       
 (DIR) Post #B69ZfBGbJSHIq8jFbs by 0h00000000@ioc.exchange
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       @mntmn Back in the 90's I worked at Exabyte in Boulder, they used 8mm video tape decks from Sony to make backup drives. They shipped to IBM and Sun among others.  At the time, the flagship product stored 8GB on a tape.I also remember that most people had a 386 while the bigwigs had 486 boxes and people would play Doom on the network.
       
 (DIR) Post #B69dWV6iZmqvaKDsEi by aderieg@post.lurk.org
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       @mntmn If @mokosh can answer that question, then the answer will certainly be interesting, even if not necessarily simple.
       
 (DIR) Post #B69erogn4BeyLtp72m by liaizon@wake.st
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       @mntmn @jannem Its called the PixelVision camera and it was using a normal cassete tape mechanism with normal tapes. Tho it only supports like 100px x 60px black and white or something, very low res. But they were originally sold to children as a toy it was like 100$
       
 (DIR) Post #B69fXSahcKy9yipi1g by jmax@mastodon.social
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       @mntmn 56k is a fair guess if you want any kind of portability. You couldn't expect a random deck to have a whole lot more bandwidth than a telephone.If you don't care about reading on an arbitrary other deck, that's different, of course.
       
 (DIR) Post #B69fh5mNHm267nsxbU by gkrnours@mastodon.gamedev.place
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       @mntmn I remember someone doing tape by hand using adhesive tape and magnetic powder then refining from there. I don't remember any open source tape reading. We are rewind is said to have not so great quality because they use the one remaining company selling tape reader and they are said to be so-so. I heard of a japanese company making a new element and the player going out of stock super fast.I would love an open source deck :)