19 Jun
2005
19 Jun
'05
10:36 a.m.
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Allison wrote:
FYI: the funkyest device was an old audio echo drum.
It was
1.15" high by about 9" diameter with a small AC motor and 20
staggered heads on two tracks. I shimmed the heads to form
5 tracks with two heads (one for read and one for write).
The drum was coated with brown oxide and rotated at around
180 rpm (effective "tape speed of ~84ips). I figured it
could hold 1kb per track at around 32k baud. It did.
I ended up using that a for a few months (till the
motor bearings which were poor to start failed.) to store
a whopping 10kbyts with an access time of about 400ms.
Wow, that is really cool! Homebrew drum storage on a home computer using
audio. Awesome!
I don't suppose you have any photos or notes for that project still?
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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