14 Dec
2007
14 Dec
'07
6:19 a.m.
Robert Nansel wrote:
Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or
even get some
floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued to
a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the old
machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM,
somewhere around 6000 RPM, say.
Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if the
magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, though?
Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at all - a
drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000??
If I've got my numbers right, a small 6" drum has a diameter of approx 19"
and
at 6000rpm will take 1/100 seconds to do a single revolution. That's 1900" per
second past each head - roughly 1000 times the typical operating speed of a
cassette deck.
Build several low-speed soda can drums - equivalent in number to the word
length of your machine, then read/write data in parallel... (OK, that's a
humourous suggestion, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone hasn't tried it)
cheers
Jules