In 1981 a novel use of vynil was invented.

Discussion in 'Hi-Fi and General Audio' started by amazingtrade, Nov 29, 2003.

  1. amazingtrade

    amazingtrade Mad Madchestoh fan

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    I was doing some research for a report and came accross some strange things. One of them was this:

    December: Your Computer editor Toby Wolpe invents the cover disc - a 33.3 rpm vinyl single holding Sinclair ZX81 games


    I cannot believe this could have worked because of the crackles and background noise. I guess the idea is the user would save the tone onto cassete and then the cassete can be used to run the programs. However surely the crackles would have been recorded onto tape as well and when the Spectrum tried to decode it would have caused lots of errors?

    Maybe they had to played on an Linn LP12.:confused:
     
    amazingtrade, Nov 29, 2003
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  2. amazingtrade

    HenryT

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    Interesting AT, not heard about that before, but you've just nudged a memory of something from the dim and distant past which I've never seen discussed since and which is very similar and the same issues are apparent...

    Back in the 80's ( ;) ) , there was an experiment run by the BBC called "Basicode". The idea was to distribute free software to as many people regardless of the make/model of their home computer via the radio. People interested in taking part would send off for a cassette tape (a floppy disk might have been available too IIRC for those who were lucky enough to be able to afford to have a floppy disk drive on their home computer back in those days - not all "home" computers even had the option of floppy drives). Anyway, this tape would contain a version of Basicode (a "BASIC" like interpreted programming language, erm basically!) for each of the supported computer platforms, all on this one tape.

    Each weekend morning, Saturday and Sunday at about 5:55 am IIRC, Radio 1 would broadcast the data before starting their days normal scheduled shows. Now bearing in mind that this was back in the days when Radio 1 was only available on medium wave. Similar problems yeah?

    Well, in the 2 dozen or so attempts I had, I only ever got one or maybe two downloads to work. :rolleyes:
     
    HenryT, Nov 30, 2003
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  3. amazingtrade

    Tom.

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    I remember those. It wasn't actually pressed onto vinyl, but some kind of floppy plastic, about the same consistency as leather. I never tried it, although considering the extremely low data rate recorded onto the disc, it should have worked ok.
     
    Tom., Nov 30, 2003
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  4. amazingtrade

    The Devil IHTFP

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    In 2003 a novel spelling of vinyl was invented.
     
    The Devil, Dec 1, 2003
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  5. amazingtrade

    julian2002 Muper Soderator

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    i also remember those. as tom says they were on very thin floppy pvc or something. i did actually get one to work although it was a pain in the arse. the other novel way of transmitting computer data from those days was a flashing square at the bottom of the tv screen during 'The Computer Programme' but that was for beebs.
    cheers

    julian
     
    julian2002, Dec 1, 2003
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  6. amazingtrade

    domfjbrown live & breathe psy-trance

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    Ah yeah, but how any data got loaded at all, bearing in mind the shockingly poor "flat" mono tape recorders most people had dangling off of their speccies/Vic20s/BBC A/BBC B/Acorn Atom/Dragon/whatever machines would have had lots of hiss, hum, and wow and flutter that a Victrola would have weeped at, is a mystery to me!!!

    Ah - great days - I used to love watching the loading patterns on my mate's speccy :)

    Howsabout the BBC transmissions of games and program data for the BBC B/Master series, via teletext? I've got a couple of discs' worth that we got using our school's BBC/teletext adaptor (cheers Zippy!).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 1, 2003
    domfjbrown, Dec 1, 2003
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