10 Mar
2017
10 Mar
'17
10:39 a.m.
The next extension is to track the tachometer values so that you can detect and compensate
for tape stick/drag
which is absolutely critical for formats that don't self-clock, like NRZI.
Fortunately, they mention that the tapes they worked with were in good condition.
The killer problem with the Qualstar is the reel motors are low torque. If you get a
sticky tape, the RPMs go wonky.
Good news is the Saleae 16 can do digital and analog capture.
On 3/10/17 10:22 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
The software mentioned in the article sounds very
interesting. It talks about starting with digital data streams from the 9 heads, but adds
that you can start with analog data too. That would be a small change: you'd
basically have to add the slicer in software. That's potentially valuable, if the
signals are marginal so the threshold needs to adjust on the fly.
Obviously this can also be adapted to other tape formats, for example 7 track tapes. Or
esoteric stuff like 10 track tapes.
Thanks for that link!
paul