Actions
Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 29 replies
  • Subscribers 550 subscribers
  • Views 2223 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

I like how this sounds, but then again, I probably wouldn't

stanto

It's 3:30am and I've finished fighting with the Baldur's Gate 3 toolkit to edit a mod I'm working on, and a thought hits me.

Wouldn't it be funny to store music on a cassette?

No, not like that.

I'm talking about, digital music. Take say, an MP3 or equivalent, potentially lossy compression audio format - because it would be funnier. Then create an audio file at a low bitrate, depth and frequency. Then have write it to a cassette tape, like in the ZX Spectrum / Commodore 64 days.

Then play it back and decode it on the fly!

I believe it would be an interesting juxtaposition of technology while being a challenge to get the most out of the compression and data rates, and handling errors on the way. Resulting in a pretty hilarious audio file.

Consider it an art piece.

I wonder what the bill of materials would look like for that? I still have some as-new cassettes lying around...

Parents

  • Having read through all the replies so far, I feel you might be interested in 'Packet Radio', a system of data transfer between two computers using a tranceiver each (on the same radio frequency) and a modem usually based around a Z80. Zero's and One's were harmonically-related audio ferqencies. The system would work with several users on each channel, it coped with 'collision detection' and slightly inaccurate baud rates. If more than four zeroes were sent then a system called 'bit-stuffing' was used to insert a One into the data stream to re-align the clocks, which were phase-locked to the incoming signal. The receiver would remove it so that the data was not corrupted. The dual tones were audio frequencies and used the CUTS tape interface on the Beeb. This also selected Transmit or Receive using the relay contacts that normally stopped and started the cassette recorder.

    Reading your contribution made me think that using a similar system you could use multiple recorders to produce Electronic Music based on random mixing of several different cassettes set to playback, simultaneously and/or only one at a time, or any combination of the above. There is an article on Wikipedia that explains it all far better than I can, it must be 40 years since I used packet radio! 

Reply

  • Having read through all the replies so far, I feel you might be interested in 'Packet Radio', a system of data transfer between two computers using a tranceiver each (on the same radio frequency) and a modem usually based around a Z80. Zero's and One's were harmonically-related audio ferqencies. The system would work with several users on each channel, it coped with 'collision detection' and slightly inaccurate baud rates. If more than four zeroes were sent then a system called 'bit-stuffing' was used to insert a One into the data stream to re-align the clocks, which were phase-locked to the incoming signal. The receiver would remove it so that the data was not corrupted. The dual tones were audio frequencies and used the CUTS tape interface on the Beeb. This also selected Transmit or Receive using the relay contacts that normally stopped and started the cassette recorder.

    Reading your contribution made me think that using a similar system you could use multiple recorders to produce Electronic Music based on random mixing of several different cassettes set to playback, simultaneously and/or only one at a time, or any combination of the above. There is an article on Wikipedia that explains it all far better than I can, it must be 40 years since I used packet radio! 

Children
No Data