building my own relay computer

[Tom Sparks]

On 15/02/15 10:30, Peter Corlett wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 09:38:31AM +1000, Tom Sparks wrote:
> [...]
>> in my "What If" world the postal office network owned the telegraph network
> 
> In the UK, that was indeed the case. In a fine bit of legal wrangling, it was
> argued that the GPO's monopoly on the postal service extended to the other
> peer-to-peer communications systems such as the telegraph and telephone as they
> were invented.
> 
> Had the GPO not had the telephone service rebranded BT and privatised in the
> 1980s, it would no doubt be claiming monopoly rights over Internet access as
> well. As it is, BT still pretty much control the market.
> 
> [...]
>> that why I asked about Magnetic tape filesystem and found phi-deck I thought
>> about record sized floppy disk :)
> 
> There were quite a few bizarre tape-loop systems for early microcomputers that
> were claimed to be random-access and cheaper than floppy disks, but were
> generally extremely unreliable, and I doubt they really worked out cheaper for
> anything but trivial storage needs due to there being only one manufacturer of
> the bespoke media.
> 
> Sinclair's "microdrive" was perhaps the canonical unreliable storage. It takes
> a lot of effort to be more unreliable than a C90 cassette tape, but Sir Clive
> was well up to the challenge thanks to his ability to penny-pinch to the limit
> and then cut some more corners just to make sure.
> 
I remember read about about a spiral tracking DRM method used on floppy
disk in late 1980's
there was also Triton QD[1] witch have spiral track
[1] http://www.worldofspectrum.org/hardware/feat20.html