Phase Identifier

[ban-all-sheds]

You're all too modern, I can remember using cassette tapes for loading computers. In the days, before internet

I can remember using punched paper tape to do that, in the days before cassettes...

My most up to date PC doesn't have an onboard FDD socket .

You can get USB floppy drives.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

And somewhere I have stuff on DAT tapes (hopefully not striped), and QIC...

 

[JohnW2]

You're all too modern,

Not all of us

I can remember using cassette tapes for loading computers. In the days, before internet

Same here, and I still have plenty of those ('audio') cassettes full of digital data, too. However, I go back further than that - some of my earliest experiences of 'loading' (c.f. booting) computers was with puched paper tape (and I still have a good few reels of that, too - but probably not a working means of reading them any more!), and my very earliest experiences were with IBM punched cards, although I never used them 'at home' (kit too expensive!).

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've come to the conclusion that it is no longer possible to think of anything (legal) which is so weird that you can't find somebody on the internet who has already done it.

 

[Spark123]

My most up to date PC doesn't have an onboard FDD socket .

You can get USB floppy drives.

Unfortunately the lighting desk is a bit funny over what it will read, and all floppy emulators that I have seen have the IDC plug on the back.
Have just put a thread in hardware to see if anyone knows about these things.

Dec II tapes and bog standard cassette tapes are about as far back as I go

 

[stillp]

You're all too modern, I can remember using cassette tapes for loading computers. In the days, before internet

I have a floppy drive for my PC as I still need one for uploading software to a lighting desk, RF will be in the same boat. My most up to date PC doesn't have an onboard FDD socket .

Cue Monty Python style Yorkshire accent:
Cassette tapes? Eeeh lad tha don't know tha's born! When I were a lad we 'ad to enter each step of a program in t'hexadecimal.

Actually I once (late seventies) knew someone who made a word processor using an array of toggle switches, a pusbutton, and a Motorola MC14500 single-bit microprocessor. For each character he had to set up the ASCII code on the toggle switches then 'enter' it using the pushbutton.

COme to think of it I still have an Acorn System One in the attic, that used cassette tapes for bulk storage. Now if only I could find a cassette tape player...

 

[SimonH2]

You can get USB floppy drives.

Unfortunately the lighting desk is a bit funny over what it will read, and all floppy emulators that I have seen have the IDC plug on the back.

I think the idea was for you to plug the USB floppy into the PC and write your floppy disk that way. Then the desk just needs to read the standard floppy.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/index.html

 

[Lectrician]

I can remember a site with LOADS of these in a securely looked room...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I used to be able to thread those with my eyes closed.


This must stop now.

 

[Spark123]

You can get USB floppy drives.

Unfortunately the lighting desk is a bit funny over what it will read, and all floppy emulators that I have seen have the IDC plug on the back.

I think the idea was for you to plug the USB floppy into the PC and write your floppy disk that way. Then the desk just needs to read the standard floppy.

Yep, I have a USB floppy but the desk is a bit funny about reading disks written from it, maybe as the USB is a faster write speed than a normal drive.

 

[SimonH2]

One or other drive is "out of spec" then. Assuming 3 1/2", what capacity are they - 720K or 1.4M ?

Darn, it sure does seem strange writing capacities like that !

 

[JohnW2]

Yep, I have a USB floppy but the desk is a bit funny about reading disks written from it, maybe as the USB is a faster write speed than a normal drive.

You've rather lost me. Once data is written to a floppy, it's written, and I can't see how a device subsequently reading from the floppy could know (or care) at what speed the data was written to the floppy.

Are you suggesting that the USB drive is, in some sense, not writing to the floppy 'properly', or what?

Kind Regards, John

 

[Spark123]

The desks are renowned for being funny about reading disks, they run their own operating system - not Microsoft or similar. They can go funny too if the disk isn't formatted in the desk. Normally I format in the desk and use an old laptop to write files such as fixture files, the USB ext drive has had mixed results in the past.
Uses 1.4M disks, fairly new Sony drive in the desk and a PC world special USB external drive

 

[viewer]

A bit removed from the OQ, but can't help butting in with recollections of writing punched cards (1960s for IBM). Awful; one mistake and two days later the whole lot came back without any explanation. This could happen several weeks running for the same analysis. Ah well, but I do remember that NASA had lots of data on tape and 8" discs and no hardware to read it so had to try and rebuild "old" machines to try and recover the information.