Cassette tapes as storage

[Denz006]

I know this is a stupid question but can I use audio cassette tape on windows 10 to store files or other information

[da na]

Welcome to the forums!

Nope. A normal audio cassette won't work, but there are tape drives with special tapes for that purpose.

[Denz006]

But if I can covert a file into sound then record on to the cassette through an audio cable then sending the sound back to computer then turning into a file again. Will that work? 

 

 

[Kilrah]

I mean you can use software meant to transfer data to old computers that used cassettes to turn a file into a wave file, record that onto a tape, grab it back, and use the software again to convert it back into a file...

[Denz006]

Sounds cool! but I think there are drop outs on tapes and can affect it and unreliable

[tkitch]

Can you?  In theory yes you can.

Tapes are magnetic storage, so it *can* work.

Now that being said:  There are no drives (that I know of) that are meant to record data from a PC to audio cassettes.

And Tape Drives do NOT function like "external hard drives" so that's not how you'd use them.  

 

What are you actually trying to do, that's usually an easier thing to work out a solution for.  

 

Edit:  Yeah, as @Kilrahmentioned, some old PCs did have cassette drives, but those back in the day were measured in Kilobytes of storage, not any quantity that would be useful by any standards today.  

[Dreckssackblase]

Well it's not going to be fun to encode something digital onto an analog format with issues like wow and flutter that can vary between tape readers.

[da na]

6 minutes ago, Denz006 said:

But if I can covert a file into sound then record on to the cassette through an audio cable then sending the sound back to computer then turning into a file again. Will that work? 

 

 

Yes, you can, but that is miserable.

Even in the Commodore 64 days it would take a good 5 minutes or so to load a program from tape. A modern file, being larger than the few hundred kilobytes of an equivalently sized floppy, would take a whole 120 min tape for a simple image file. 

[da na]

4 minutes ago, Denz006 said:

Sounds cool! but I think there are drop outs on tapes and can affect it and unreliable

Yes, but if you get a high bias tape and a good quality serviced tape deck you can get flawless sound. 

However that'd run you up like $800 or so for a decent set. 

[Denz006]

To me I think its fun to see if I can store data on cassette

[tkitch]

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette

 

This drive has a data read speed of about 300 bits/second...  so more than 3 seconds per kilobyte.  

 

Or about 57 Minutes to read 1 MB of data.  

[Denz006]

Well I can't afford to get high quality metal tapes or something else

[Kilrah]

8 minutes ago, Denz006 said:

Sounds cool! but I think there are drop outs on tapes and can affect it and unreliable

Yup. But "experiencing" those kinds of issues would be the only reason to do that today in the first place, so if that's what you want certainly have a go.

[Denz006]

Maybe later on I would do the cassette experiment. Also I saw a video on lgr where he looked at a device that can encode and decode data from VHS and use it as storage on an old computer

[tkitch]

7 minutes ago, Denz006 said:

Maybe later on I would do the cassette experiment. Also I saw a video on lgr where he looked at a device that can encode and decode data from VHS and use it as storage on an old computer

So, here's the thing with computers and tech:

 

If you're dedicated enough?  You can make anything in the fucking world work.  

 

It doesn't mean it will work /well/, but you can make /anything/ work.

 

See:  IP Over Carrier Pidgeon

[Denz006]

Cool

[Cavalry Canuck]

Have you considered upgrading to floppy disks?

[Denz006]

No I just want to see with cassette

[whispous]

Memory sticks are $5

[Denz006]

6 hours ago, whispous said:

Memory sticks are $5

yes but cassette tapes are more interesting to me

[whispous]

31 minutes ago, Denz006 said:

yes but cassette tapes are more interesting to me

well I applaud your enthusiasm and patience.

You will not be able to "randomly access" the data you learn to store on tapes in any normal, useful way. You'll store virtually nothing on them, and it will be a long process of learning how streaming data functions.

 

You might have fun.