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

If you want an idea of the circuitry that was originally used in these kind of interfaces, this is a cassette tape interface I built around 1979. I think it might have been based on a Don Lancaster design. It worked at 300 baud and was quite solid and reliable recording and playing back. The large chip is a UART. The panel switch is labelled play and record. I think that the relay controlled the motion of the tape, somehow, maybe via the small mains PSU I built to power the recorder to save on batteries.

jc2048 Thank you for the reference, I believe you are referring to Don Lancaster’s “Bit Boffer”

www.tinaja.com/.../bitboff.pdf

It's very possible, though I don't now recollect the article. I didn't get to see Byte much until later - the various magazines weren't imported here in the UK very much at that stage, but I did obtain from somewhere the first book where they rolled together a lot of the more interesting content, so perhaps it was from that. I might still have it - I'll have a rummage around later.

The only US magazine I read regularly was Dr Dobbs, which I had a subscription to for a few years (it got flown over air mail). For a while, that had some really good stuff in it - I can remember rewriting one of the various Tiny BASICs that appeared, from 8080 code to 6502. Indeed that might have been part of my motivation for doing the cassette interface: it would have been painful entering that in machine code every time I wanted to use it.

The time you throw something away is inversely proportional to when you will need it.

I packed three boxes of unused electronics to the curb this week. The community schedules one week in the year where they will collect electronic waste for disposal. Before it was collected, I had a homeless person bring a computer back to my house from the curb and ask me to store it for them. I told them my wife wouldn't let me and they accepted that.

I will need to befriend you if I explain to my missus why I am laughing.

Mine, my wife is even worse a collecting books than I am.

When we ran out of shelf space I made the rule.

Since then she now has 4-5 thousand e-books that she will never read.

Is that your policy or the wife’s?  I also tend not to buy paper books anymore if there is an ebook available but older material is harder to find.  I do prefer reading “real” books but they do take up space and aren’t searchable.  The 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed or damaged many of my older books and  magazines.

Is that your policy or the wife’s?  I also tend not to buy paper books anymore if there is an ebook available but older material is harder to find.  I do prefer reading “real” books but they do take up space and aren’t searchable.  The 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed or damaged many of my older books and  magazines.

Mine, my wife is even worse a collecting books than I am.

When we ran out of shelf space I made the rule.

Since then she now has 4-5 thousand e-books that she will never read.