Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape

From	Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape
Date	2012-08-08 01:23 -0700
Organization	http://groups.google.com
Message-ID	<33bc1b47-8e2d-4234-b29d-e4e8008b1644@y1g2000vbx.googlegroups.com> (permalink)
References	<fcc18345-0e14-4996-be73-8e58ca6f79a4@googlegroups.com> <29d45f86-0ee8-48cf-aa79-5b500f993e79@googlegroups.com> <7xipcuija4.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>

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On Aug 7, 8:39 pm, Paul Rubin <no.em...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Jason Damisch <jasondami...@yahoo.com> writes:
> > You can assume that for the sake of the simulation, that you didn't
> > get your computer from K-Mart or Toys-R-Us and didn't have enough to
> > pay for a disk drive so went with the tape drive. LOL
>
> The PET and microcomputer cassette interfaces were before my time but
> looking at
>
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datassette
>
> was interesting.  It was apparently a standard cassette recorder with
> some adc/dac's and a special edge connector.  In particular the article
> doesn't say whether the computer could start and stop the tape transport
> or rewind the tape under software control.  Do you know if that was
> possible?
>
> If it wasn't, I doubt think the datasette was likely usable for much
> other than a program loader.  In particular, the usual things one did
> with magtape, such as merge sorting, required controlling the transport.
> Merge sorting involved reading blocks of data from 2 drives, merging
> them, and writing the output to a third drive.  That meant you had to
> write to the output drive twice as fast as you were reading from the
> individual input drives, so you had to control the drive speed or be
> able to start and stop the tape when you read a block.
>
> I did see some 9-track magtape drives back in the day and they had
> powerful motors and tape slack mechanisms to be able to start and stop
> the tape quickly.  I don't think audio recorders were built anything
> like that.

It could start and stop the tape, but nothing else. No forward and
rewing via software. That had to be done by a human. Loading from
cassette tape was a big part of my computing life as a young child. I
shudder when I think of it now!

Thread

Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape chitselb <chitselb@gmail.com> - 2012-08-07 06:21 -0700
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-08-07 08:44 -0500
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-07 14:01 +0000
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-07 07:24 -0700
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> - 2012-08-07 15:30 +0000
    Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> - 2012-08-07 17:36 +0000
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2012-08-07 11:52 -0700
    Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-07 12:39 -0700
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-07 12:55 -0700
        Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-07 22:00 +0200
          Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-08 00:27 -0700
            Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-08 01:26 -0700
              Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-08 02:31 -0700
              Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-08 02:46 -0700
            Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-08 02:23 -0700
              Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-08 10:57 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-08 04:59 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-08 12:24 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-08 11:10 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-09 00:13 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-08 16:05 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-08 17:30 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-09 03:26 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-09 05:30 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-09 19:21 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-09 13:30 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-10 01:27 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape vandys@vsta.org - 2012-08-09 00:32 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-09 03:33 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-09 06:00 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-09 05:26 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-09 13:44 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-09 10:21 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-09 19:50 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-09 12:32 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-08-09 22:07 +0200
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-09 13:58 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-09 17:36 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-10 04:13 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-11 20:27 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-10 15:57 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-13 05:23 -0700
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-15 15:13 +0000
                Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-08-15 11:57 -0700
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-08 07:08 +0000
        Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape chitselb <chitselb@gmail.com> - 2012-08-08 06:25 -0700
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-08 01:23 -0700
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk - 2012-08-08 05:06 -0500
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Percy <percival.andrews@gmail.com> - 2012-08-08 21:11 -0700
    Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape chitselb <chitselb@gmail.com> - 2012-08-08 21:30 -0700
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape percival.andrews@gmail.com - 2012-08-08 23:50 -0700
        Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape chitselb <chitselb@gmail.com> - 2012-08-09 03:54 -0700
          Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-08-09 09:07 -0700
            Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape chitselb <chitselb@gmail.com> - 2012-08-09 12:20 -0700
  Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Mat <dambere@web.de> - 2012-08-10 13:41 -0700
    Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2012-08-10 23:54 +0200
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape dambere@web.de - 2012-08-10 15:41 -0700
        Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2012-08-11 01:47 +0200
    Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-08-11 03:50 -0500
      Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-11 09:03 +0000
        Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-08-11 16:08 -0500
    Re: Implementing virtual memory on cassette tape "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-08-11 21:51 -1000

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