Second,
I'm planning to use my PC sound card to record/playback in lieu
of a tape recorder (more reliable, less hassle), and wonder if anyone
has done the same with any success?
Just use the serial port... It's more reliable.
What I'd really like to do would be to modify SOLOS to support redirection of
tape output byte stream to the serial port, and then write some software for my
PC (i.e. the other end of the serial cable) that read/wrote the corresponding
files to disk.
Too many projects, not enough time...