An engineer has created a relay computer that uses magnetic tape storage for data input, using both channels of a stereo cassette deck, one for a clock signal, and the other for data, and encoded as a sequence of tones.
The data is then amplified, and a rectifier is fired using the amplified signal, for each byte to be loaded into the memory of the computer.
While magnetic tape storage is considered something from the 1960’s, along with 8-bit microcomputers, it is still used today for long-term backups in the modern data centre.
This isn’t the slowest form of cassette storage either, as another developer is working on a much faster cassette interface.
In the past, there have been many attempts at holographic storage, with companies like InPhase Technologies, Aprilis, and Optware (Japan) attempting to use it for 3.9TB of memory.
