Computer tape played through audio recorder!

[CanesFan680]

"Oh my God! It didn't work! Quick, I need a distraction! Ladies and Gentlemen...Mr. Conway Twitty!"

[marhalabszar]

slightly better than dubstep

[thezenarcadian]

If anyone has any of this in MP3, please post for download! Used to love buying Spectrum tapes in my local charity shop and listening to them in my dad's tape deck, picking out little hidden rhythms and fragments of music.

[tonstad39]

Stop your killing it!

[HoneycombAgent]

R TAPE LOAD ERROR,0:1

[kinmanyuen]

0001110100000001101

[bolloxinator]

I rememeber these things so well.7 minutes to load 48k and right at the end "Tape loading error, 0:1"

[bolloxinator]

There are plenty of free emulators for the old home computers and you can load these tapes through your sound card, or just download the image files.

[jks2]

that noise almost made me vommit haha. i like the cassette recorder!

[Macintosh3745]

dial-up

[benayounyossi]

Not bad. I'd have made the comparison to computer data stored on CD's but its similar enough I guess.

[moogyboy6]

Aah, memories! The classic handshake sound from the Radio Shack CoCo2 that I remember so well from my youth.

[wandov8]

i saw some bits falling down...

[TheMJG1]

Hahaha, i remember that in later 80's in Poland where radio auditions when we could record the tape and run this programme on C64...

[kicknetik]

I LOVE the sound at 2:00. It reminds me in the movie Alien when the comp is analyzing data.

Is there a way to reproduce it with nowdays computer through headphones?

[TheComputerNerd0101]

WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH YOUTUBE, I LAGS AT 240P?

[genuinescorruption]

This noise is actually a lot different than the noise you here if you put a data cd in an old cd player. I guess it makes sense though, one is analogue and the other is digital. Now what would happen if you put a tape containing music into one of these old computers?

[chabitus]

My old TRS MC10 computer made the exact same sounds on its data tapes

[thezenarcadian]

Tapes, belching, white noise. THE AWESOME.

[batking28]

tunes

[simonspaz]

Nostalgia'd HARD

[3y3tiger]

This fills me with annoyed nostalgia. Back in the days of dial-up internet, when I was a little kid, my dad would come home from work and get on the computer to check his email...and just as I was going to sleep THIS would happen.

[compugeekmsn]

LOL ITS JUST LIKE A MODEM!!!!!!!

MEEEEE ERRRR OOOOOO DUDUDUDUDUD

[RonRizzy]

You couldn't just connect "any" tape recorder to the computer. Generally these were specific recorders designed for computer data save/load operations. The port in the computer's end was generally a ribbon cable or a DIN connector. Commodore for example, used the a DIN connector with several pins. This system was NOT like your stereo system recorder which just used simple RCA patch cords. You could almost do that for "copying", but a 2nd generation copy could deteriorate the copied data signal.

[MissSkymin]

Sounds like a dial-up connection mixed with a cat and snake hissing.

[RavinTekman]

boot a linux machine and type:

cd /dev

dd if=hda of=audio

a 1TB HDD can have hours of noise!

[skitch88]

have you ever heard IBM by Throbbing Gristle?

[16mmDJ]

What type of computer was this designed for?

[ZXRulezzz]

I think it's for MSX

[16mmDJ]

@ZXRulezzz cool

[qopha]

@ZXRulezzz Sounds close, but it's not MSX data. MSX tapes sound higher-pitched.

[ZXRulezzz]

@qopha I thought it's from MSX because of the loading instructions on tape cover. CLOAD is command from MSX-Basic.

[coondogtheman1234]

I have a few wav files of computer data but its from an answering machine microcassette tape. I have my new microcassette recorder hooked to my PC and am trying to decode this data sound. I need a software program that can decode any type of data signal.

[patricknedz]

I was thinking about that Dial up thing before you said that, it does sound like that, but also I thought there was another kind of tape for the computer that had the reels closer together and was longer, I think it was a data tape or something, I have not seen many computers with tape decks.

[moogyboy6]

Heck, as a recording-obsessed 10 year old in the early '80s, playing the program tapes from my Radio Shack MC-10 and Color Computer 2 was, like, the first thing I tried. The fact that you're just discovering this now is sooooo precious.

For me listening to these tapes evokes much the same eerieness as picking up shortwave radio transmissions on a cold winter night.

[zomgthesoftness]

Y'know, if you did a bit of mixing with a decent DJ program, you would have a pretty good techno song.

[Juhsthavingfun]

I want you cassette recorder. That is so cool! I vaguely remember those cassettes but we didn't have a computer when I was growing up. I have to show this to my hubby. He is a bit older than me and a computer geek. I'm sure he'll enjoy the flash back.

[bachelorsavenue]

That is the coolest cassette player I've ever seen!! I kinda collect old electronics, and i've noticed that just recently tape players are getting sort of hard to find.

[Lachlant1984]

The lavel on the tape reads For use with Electronic Book only, I've not heard of that device before, can anyone out there tell me anything about it? Soneone I once new has what I think was an Amstrad computer with a built in tape recorder, I remember hearing those sounds when they unsuccessfully tried to load a program for a tape.

[fatcatbuzz]

That's sound takes me back. I remember playing some of the earlist computer games with those tapes in the early 80s.

[rogerpenna]

i used this with my MSX 8bit computer (most popular 8bit computer in the world, outside of US and UK).

I remember my cousin could listen to these tapes and tell when a new file started and several other things.

[bobofengland112]

lol, i liked your impression of a modem

[bakhtn]

Theory:

Modem - coverts digital data into analogue and vice versa from computer to phone line.

Cassete - stored computer data, heard via a analogue playing cassete player you hear the digital data noise via a analogue player.

[bakhtn]

sounds similar to dial-up internet connection noise.

[BelieveNoGod]

@bakhtn It IS the same. In 'the beginning' data was transmitted as sound.

Even today, you can find programs that sends and receive data over the telephone lines as sound. And you can access BBS's to download whatever you are searching for.

You need the right phonenumbers, and passwords of course.

[luther349]

the c64 tapes could hold 100kb of data and had very long load times up to the entire tape length 30 min. however later in the c64 life turbo tape was made a software hack included in most tape based software it reduced load times alot and increased the storage to 1000 kb per side witch was about 3 floppy s of the time and more reliable. all fast loader carts had turbo tape. modern tape drives can hold tarabyes of data. but tapes never got mutch faster.

[luther349]

also hackers used to make these tapes to make free calls and other hacks back in the 80s being thats is computer talk and any old pc will start talking back.

[ToastmachineIdiot]

Ohhh..... such beautiful sounds!

[TVperson1]

I've heard you can store 60 megabytes on these, but you need the right equipment.

[rogerpenna]

maybe you can, but I want to see how much time it would take for that (and playback).

while you could play tapes at double speed (or even triple) the error rate while loading programs would be too great.

and at normal speed, it would take THREE WHOLE MINUTES to load a 16kb program!!!

[WindowsAndMacintosh]

nice dial-up immatation....

[wildbilltexas]

Back in the 80's I found out you could copy data cassettes for the Commodore Vic-20 and C=64 on my Sharp dubbing jambox on the regular speed.

[wedrinkmountaindew]

Do you have the ITT one that does overdubs?

[CassetteMaster]

No.

[dro10100]

LOL great impression

[shikokun]

I used to use these on my atari 65xe as a little kid

[privateworldofwarft]

How much data does that store lol. A tape recorder damn. That must have been long loading times.

[LuTELLO]

I just saved a "basic YouTube quality" digital video file to audio cassette.

The video is 4 seconds long but the recording is 19 minutes long, and that's running at twice the bitrate KCS was designed for!

[LuTELLO]

Look up "Kansas City Standard" on Wikipedia. They have a link to a DOS program that does basically the same thing with a normal sound card. I've recorded several small games and text files to audio cassette just for the hell of it!

[matkovicha]

I loaded it in DOS and all, but how do you actually use it?

[RDL1984]

This isn't a Spectrum ZX 48 tape. Sounds very very fast...

[ENigma9001]

Hehe, awesome piece of computing history.

You also have the same effect (with higher speed obviously) with a CD-ROM played in an old Audio CD Player too. It has to be old, from the late 80's most and it will show up as a one track cd. When you play it, it will almost be like white noise. Found out the hard way messing with old PC and Playstation games way back when they had CD music tracks after track 1, being the data track.

[vali103]

can you tell me pls the name of that software

[dadburnde]

yeah

I finally got my Technician License

I have yet to hit a repeater thanks to a new CTCS for my radio from the 70s(heavy duty Kenwood)

exept me and my dad are figuring out the problem

[dadburnde]

that there cassette is for a TRS-80 Color Computer 1,2,and 3

not for any other TRS-80 computer

and if you still have the apple 2 can I have it?

[BASCKIT13]

were you sick win you recorded this video ?

[nicejiggalow]

it sounds like a modem signal when connected to a bbs. this reminds me around 15 years ago.

[VideyoJunkei]

Also, listen to "Teddy ruxpin" tapes, and Coleco Vision 'ADAM' tapes...

[Lachlant1984]

I know on the Teddy Ruxpin cassettes the right channel was used for a data control midulated tone that was used to control the movement of Teddy's eyes and mouth, I've heard the noise, it was bloody horrible.

[diymania]

Haha *BURP* @ the end :D

[VideyoJunkei]

I wanted to add:different computers used different encoding schemes for data storage on tape(probably to avoid copyright stuff with formats) play a Vic-20,Atari 800,ICE Interact, and TRS-80 tape, you will see what I mean!!

[clydesight]

Commodore was the only one to make a dedicated cassette drive for their computers. It used a special redundant PCM (pulse code modulation) technique and their recorder was not an audio machine (had no speaker or analog inputs). While many audio recorders and computers had trouble communicating (partial recovery or saving of data, etc.) Commodore machines tended to be more accurate. All data was serial, hence the process was S-L-O-W.

[Lachlant1984]

Did you have a Commodore 64 back then? There were I believe some computers that could use standard tape recorders and had standard inputs and outputs.

[clydesight]

I had all the Commodore computers back then from the VIC-20 through the Commodore 128. Apple II used a standard tape recorder, rather badly. But they had disk drives, so no big deal with the cassette not working right (1 out of 3 tries might get it to work).

The datasette always worked for the Commodore, and they prided themselves on how reliable it was. They should, their disc drives cost more than their computers!

[VideyoJunkei]

nice sound effects dude!!

[AtlasRedux]

Not sound effects ... anyone growing up with a C64 with "turbo" ( aka Compression ), will recognize thoose sounds in an instant ... of some reason the compression-system played the audio when loading the games ... annoying as heck.

[MultimediaJay]

Sounds like a modem. =D

[baneskrbic]

MultimediaJay : "Sounds like a modem. =D"

electronics dude...

:D!

[baneskrbic]

electronics dude...SWEET!

:D!

[Parasite81]

omg, im too old if this one is interesting for anyone :D i started on zx spectrum, that used normal casette player through its jack, then the commodore came, that used its own player. btw, the fax used almost the same datasound through phoneline..

[AtlasRedux]

Yeah, all analoge ways of transferring data will make thoose sounds. It seems they had some kind of standard frequencies most systems used for communication, being it casette or wire.

Not sure if it WAS a standard, but modems, faxes, tapes etc. etc. all seem to work on the same freqs.

[petergailis]

lol 101010101111011010101100001010­1011110101010

[marravilla]

The mini discrecorder is very good. you have many tracks for recording. The soundquality is excellent.

[bradmann85]

there are radio signals that i can pickup on a police scanner around 160 mhz that uses the same thing. you can tell that its comunicating with another tower far away du to a faint noise comming back.

[richkawaiipikachu]

Acording to wikipedia Commodore 64 uses a specialised tape player .

[AtlasRedux]

Nope, not at all. You could actually copy games using a plain normal dual-deck casette player.

[Berniebud]

It sounds like a phycho screaming! XD

[EclipseWebJS]

Most of the computer tapes have a standard. Can anyone say "Kansas City Standard"?

[RemoteProcedureCall]

That is really interesting. I got some similar-ish sounds from a vinyl record it's weird

[richkawaiipikachu]

Most probably only because of similar waveforms .

[SuperMatch2007]

not counting a handful of things, that had to be the most ear-bleeding and unpleasant sound ever. I am glad I was not a child of that primitive era.

[AtlasRedux]

Well, you wouldn't hear the loading-sounds on MOST games, some even had a minigame to play while you waiting for ages for the real game to play ... however, installing compression for extremely faster loading speeds of some reason, at least on the C64, spew out those sounds. And flickering colors. Hooray for mute.

[RJLeffmann]

You're a child of that era which your own children will refer to as primitive, don't you understand?

[JordanMaster22]

how do you even get computer files on an audio tape??

[CassetteMaster]

They're old tapes from the 80's made like that for loading on the old computers.

[JordanMaster22]

yes but how do you get data on and off an audio tape??

[CassetteMaster]

You hook an ordinary cassette recorder to the in and out jacks of the old computer.

[compugeekmsn]

@CassetteMaster lol its like TTY for the c64

[coondogtheman1234]

can the programs on these tapes be downloaded onto say a flash drive

[CassetteMaster]

I don't know.

[EclipseWebJS]

Is the tape 300 baud or 1200 baud? I was meaning to ask that one.

[coondogtheman1234]

well i have a swf flash video i got off G4 tech tv website and it shows this dude that built all kinds of electronic stuff and he made this device that records analog data sounds and translates them into a pc you hook one end to a pc and hook the other end to your tape recorder and you might be able to copy the data this way

[AtlasRedux]

They could, but it's not that easy ... it's in another format than PC ( like MAC-binaries can't be understood by the PC ) and would need an emulator to run the files as intended. In addition, you need a tape-reader for the PC, so it can convert the analogue sounds into digital data ( not sure if there's software that can do that so you can just use the minijack ...). But it's possible :P

[coondogtheman1234]

actually if you have a POCSAG pager decoder and you hook that to the computer and connect the tape player to the audio jack of the POCSAG and then play the tape thru that, that might do the trick, im not sure if you need software to use this thing but it may just dump into notepade but i dunno, google POCSAG grand idea studio and click on the grand idea studio result

[AtlasRedux]

Oh, sweet find!

However, it doesn't seem to "understand" C64 or Tandy code though? It does "listen" to the soundwaves, but can't get what is really is.

[coondogtheman1234]

I found this site that talks about POCSAG pager decoding and theres a device that you can buld that hooks to a serial port but what are the chances of PCs nowadays having serial ports let alone floppy drives

[coondogtheman1234]

thats just like in GTA Vice City, just do a search on GTA Vice City intro and it should show what looks like a commodore computer screen and they type "LOAD VICE CITY" (enter) then it says press play on tape,(enter) then the rockstar games logo flashes and it plays a little tune

[coondogtheman1234]

CasetteMaster thats pretty cool and yes that does sound alot like dialup sounds i have a wav of my old computer dialing up to connect to aol, also my cousins had this sesame street big bird doll tape recorder and it played stories so i played it in a normal stereo there was data on one side and speech on the other

[iabhornc]

I did the same thing once (play a computer cassette on an audio tape player). It had a sound similar to that.

[Trance88]

Yeah that does sound sort of like dial-up data sounds. I think it's kinda the same process. Each sound or tone probably triggers a computer function.

[tubeie07]

a:/run

[boyfriendable]

How can you forget Typing CLoad on the old basic computer to load the tape.

[Raidenx89]

sounds like dial up

[EclipseWebJS]

what computer does that tape go in?

[CassetteMaster]

Some Tandy computer I believe.

[damusician]

cool! i once had a computer tape and played it through a stereo and sounded like that.