3 ms·

> ... (although the data density is rather poor). "Rather poor" is putting it mildly. This sent me down a sort rabbit hole. From a Stack Exchange discussion[0]

> ... (although the data density is rather poor). "Rather poor" is putting it mildly. This sent me down a sort rabbit hole. From a Stack Exchange discussion[0] it was a short trip to exceedingly technical discussion about using QAM encoding[1] to really beef-up the storage capability. With the wacky QAM encoding tt looks like maybe 20MB per C90 cassette (and 90 minutes to "read" it back). [0] https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/9260/how-much-data-could-a-home-computer-store-on-an-audio-cassette https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/9260/how-... [1] https://redfrontdoor.org/blog/?p=795 https://redfrontdoor.org/blog/?p=795

rbanffy 2y ago
It's interesting. I wouldn't dare to go beyond a 1500 baud signaling rate, but, then, audio tape is amenable to QAM, and that could multiply the transmission to 16 bits per token or more depending on the quality of the tape and recorder. I would be careful with that, however. If you are archiving your data, it's because you like it and, if you like your data, you want it to be readable a long time from now. I'd suggest vinyl records rather than tapes, as they are very robust, and can be read without physical contact.