came across this while doing some Xmas cleaning

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Coincidentally I found this in a drawer this week. A tape back up for one of my early PCs , I don't even remember which one Perhaps my old Compaq.  Rigid aluminum base... not a cheap cassette.

JR



 

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Anybody this side of the pond was left high and dry if they bought into Betamax , I guess it eventually morphed into a pro format which satisfied the needs of the broadcasting industry for a good number of years before hard drive technology matured , I think beta at home may well have evolved into an adhoc porno film distribution network 
'Wac' material has to be traceable now for reasons of national security  ;D
 
not video... I vaguely recall several failed attempts at a competitive digital tape system... Some were based on video cassettes... I recall DBX pushing a companded deltamod system with >100dB dynamic range, not to shabby for back then...

The Planets tape (good music BTW) was probably the phillip's digital cassette system that also failed to gain traction.

My tape is much more mundane computer data back up.

JR
 
JohnRoberts said:
not video... I vaguely recall several failed attempts at a competitive digital tape system... Some were based on video cassettes... I recall DBX pushing a companded deltamod system with >100dB dynamic range, not to shabby for back then...

The Planets tape (good music BTW) was probably the phillip's digital cassette system that also failed to gain traction.

My tape is much more mundane computer data back up.

JR

The Holst tape is marked Beta and was most likely one of the PCM formats.  Anyone remember the Sony F-1?

Phillips digital cassettes were much like standard cassettes, IIRC.  Saw a few in a high end record store, or should I say CD store, back in the '90s.  Again mostly classical music and some pop releases.
 
mjrippe said:
Phillips digital cassettes were much like standard cassettes, IIRC.

That's right, the DCC-advantage was backwards compatibility, as in that DCC-decks could also playback (but not record) the 'normal' compact cassettes (which now suddenly became ACCs ;-) but this Philips-coined term didn't really came into use )

DCC uses PASC, some kind of data reduction that arguably sounds (noticably) better than MiniDisk from around the same time.
But the big advantage of MiniDisk over DCC was the instant access... no fast forward or rewind.

As a 'poor mans DAT' it didn't really caught on either, but I've used DCC extensively in the past with good results. Must add that's partly due to the price I needed to pay for decks & blank DCC-tapes (it sure helps to work for the company that invented & made it and to be around when tape-stocks were cleared)

Bye

 
JohnRoberts said:
Coincidentally I found this in a drawer this week. A tape back up for one of my early PCs , I don't even remember which one Perhaps my old Compaq.  Rigid aluminum base... not a cheap cassette.
JR

FWIW, as some kind of link between the various posted cassette-formats, when DCC didn't catch on, the MR-head technology continued for data-storage (Onstream).

BTW, I hadn't seen this weird/naughty DCC-ad clip before... (I figure they learned their lessons from the flopped Philips Video 2000 format...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EOFmOXIBuo
 
Dat , Tascam Da-88 and adat were the three digital tape formats in my time in recording ,
PCM-F1 I had heard of but never actually saw , I'm still puzzled by MP3's acceptance , its like the new lamps for old scam all over again , an old comrade of mine in the sound game calls it music to go deaf by  :) 

In the hifi shop I used work in we used do 'Hispace' minidiscs for 50 cent , ok you were limited to 'Atrac' encoding ,but you did get the abillity to edit and re-order the tracks after the fact which people really liked ,Philips DCC we did have but nobody was interested . Computer based CDR's and subsequently solid state memory put an end to the format wars and the put the hifi industry to bed in favour of disposable flavour of the week garbage .
 
Wasn't DCC in a standard tape cassette format?

Run the Holtz in a betamax player and see what happens. My guess is it will play the audio of Holst with a visual static background.

beta at home may well have evolved into an adhoc porno film distribution network
Regarding the legal side of the industry, I recall my Dad's video rental store with all the dayglow porn box graphics high up on the shelf beyond reach, always much more colorful and intriguing than the atari and colecovision game boxes.  :)
I have vague memories of beta at home being popular until VCR prices fell and took market share. All about being able to supply the rental demands while keeping everything on the shelves circulating.

 
boji said:
Wasn't DCC in a standard tape cassette format?
Yes, kind of:
DCC not fitting regular cassette decks,
but old style ('ACC') cassettes could be used in DCC-decks, for playback only.

BTW, the lack of random-access (as MiniDisc has) will not have helped DCC,
but the later DCC-decks were made 'pretty very fast' w.r.t. tape-scrolling.
 
Turns out Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab is still around https://www.mofi.com/default.asp

I sent them an email about the digital audio Betamax cassette in the pic.
 

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