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I bought a little peripheral for my amiga 500 in the 90s that could use a vhs machine as a data backup. I could store about 100 megabytes on it. Unfortunately I
by ohiovr 8y ago
I bought a little peripheral for my amiga 500 in the 90s that could use a vhs machine as a data backup. I could store about 100 megabytes on it. Unfortunately I don’t remember what it was called. It did work ok and it was really inexpensive I think I paid about $100 for it. The interesting thing to me was how simple the electronic guts of it were. No flat packs or long dips.
- pronoiac 8y agoPCs got Danmere Backer, which got Linux drivers: http://linbacker.sourceforge.net/ http://linbacker.sourceforge.net/ It could store up to 5.3 gigabytes per tape. I'm surprised the Amiga required extra hardware; I thought it had video capture and output built-in?
- EvanAnderson 8y agoAll the Amiga models could generate NTSC and PAL video, though some models needed adapters for composite output to connect to a VCR. None of the Amiga models had built-in video capture. Commodore and others made genlocks (to overlay graphics on video) and I think those contributed to the machines' reputation of being able to capture video.
- Luc 8y agoProbably Video Backup System. It displayed black and white patterns on the screen. https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=776 https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id...
- pronoiac 8y agoWhat the VHS backups would look like if you watched them: Amiga Video Backup System: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1jrLz__PlM0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=1jrLz__PlM0 Danmere Backer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=TUS0Zv2APjU&t=13m30s https://youtube.com/watch?v=TUS0Zv2APjU&t=13m30s
- avian 8y agoInteresting that these all look black-and-white. I'm guessing using VHS's low-bandwidth chroma channels for additional capacity wasn't worth the added complexity.
- ohiovr 8y agoIndeed ntsc does not have a lot of bandwidth devoted to chroma. Color on broadcast tv was tacked on about a decade after it was established. If you look at the signal on an oscilloscope only a small part is for chroma. I think it is called chroma burst.
- classichasclass 8y agoAlpha Micro (a 68K platform with a strong DEC influence common in certain vertical markets in the 80s and 90s) systems did this as well. Some of their systems could even boot from VHS. https://ampm.floodgap.com/ https://ampm.floodgap.com/