Did you ever listen to C64 datasette tapes on your stereo? This is a lot like that, except you actually store MP3s on data cassettes. Then play them back on the stereo.
Get with the times without having to replace that dual-shaft AC Delco in your Pinto. Now you're listening to MP3s in your car without having to shell out the bucks for a newfangled MP3 player!
Irony is increased by recording over the original music cassette with the MP3 data version of the same songs.-- banksean, Jan 09 2003 Help with (modern)PC<->datasette transfer http://translate.go...DUTF-8%26safe%3DoffDatentransfer from the PC to the C64 and back over Datasette [banksean, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] I guess 9 track tapes were too retro for you folks? http://www.halfbake...3_20tape_20recorder [krelnik, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] MP3's on a big ol' metal disk? http://members.aol....aronalva/page6.html [half, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] [Magnetic Tape] Archiving and Handling Recommendations http://www.reeltore...orldwide/Tips03.htmCurating and preserving archived magnetic tape. [JKew, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] PC cassette deck http://plusdeck.com/english/Also records streaming audio to tape. [waugsqueke, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] Digital Compact Cassette http://en.wikipedia...al_Compact_Cassettepretty sure the bit about beer is made up [BunsenHoneydew, Jan 11 2007] DCC Beer Filtration http://www.newscien...rticle.ns?id=dn6121Wow. Not made up after all. Good thing I didn't delete it. [BunsenHoneydew, Jan 11 2007] Cassette MP3 SD card reader http://www.maplin.c...uleNo=98893&doy=8m6I'd thought of one of these from the title... [TheLightsAreOnBut, Jun 08 2007] I'm not sure exactly how much a C64 could store on an audio tape, but I'd be surprised if you could fit anywhere near as much on a tape by MP3 encoding it as you could by simple using the tape to store analog audio. Not to mention that the data rate of a normal cassette tape wouldn't quite keep up with the ~8kB/s that you'd need to play an MP3.-- cp, Jan 09 2003 This is actually a good idea, But you would need to run it through a decoder of some sort to convert the data into music, you could install it on the line-out of your stereo, however it would be just as expensive as a new-fangled MP3 player. I like the idea purely for its retro-style. +-- Trodden, Jan 09 2003 I just liked the pure idiocity of it. Listening to data recordings on a stereo produces unintelligible noise, and if the noise is actually an encoded version of the music you wanted to listen to- well that kind of thing just makes me laugh.-- banksean, Jan 09 2003 <aside>I once saw an in-car record player on an old car. Lots of springs and suspension stuff obviously, to isolate it from the vibrations, and a little slot for 45s. </aside>Just to be even more retro and ironic, I'd listen to vinyl recording of an MP3 of the noise that the MP3 of the original song made when played through a stereo, played on a fanbelt-driven turntable.-- hippo, Jan 09 2003 Thats hilarious. I remember the datacasette in my old Atari 800 I had to try to load games like 'Necromancer' like 3 times before it would actually work. The truth of what you say is this:
The datacasette would work, but the MP3 would have to load into memory before playing. At the rate that those tapes loaded data, you would have to let your car warm up for quite some time caching data before you could listen. So while the car is warming up, you could load your favorite song and listen to it on the way to work. The real truth is you would have to start the data load the night before... And pray it all went in without a checksum error... ;)
Very funny idea!-- Real Estate, Jan 09 2003 Come up with a modulation scheme like 56k modems use, but about three times the bandwidth (phones are 4khz, cassettes 20khz stereo). Convert the mp3 to an audio file on your computer, then record it on the cassette. It's best if you actually test the reverse process before playing the noise in your car, so you know it's authentic.-- blitzberg, Jan 09 2003 OK, we've had MP3 files on 9-track open-reel tapes and MP3 files on cassette tapes. Let's head off the next few:
MP3 files on punch cards MP3 files on paper tape MP3 files on 8" floppy disks MP3 files in the back pages of computer hobbyist magazines that you type in by hand with a hex editor
Are we quite done yet?-- egnor, Jan 09 2003 Nope, not quite. (link)-- half, Jan 09 2003 mp3 cassettes are a good idea for several reasons... 1.They could work because they do have the bandwidth 2.Formats come and go, but tape is almost as long lived as records compared to anything else. I have some 100 year old records and all I have to do to hear them is spin them and put a needle on them! When CDs become obsolete, you'll need a team of rocket scientists with a laser to hear them! 3.Proof of concept. I used to have a toy camcorder that recorded digital Video on audio cassettes. (And also phone modems someone mentioned) 4.I like to tinker, and tape is easy to tinker with. If it breaks, you can splice it back together. If a cd or flashcard breaks, forget about it! 5.I think with double redundancy the mp3 cassette will be able to play well with a small buffer, one "frame", even if it gets chewed. 6.If I make or buy a recording, or a recorder, I hate to throw it away after 2 years! Yes the MP3 cassette should go in a Recorder. I am very sure they sell such a thing in Japan, having seen it in a catalog (except I can't read japanese) but riaa doesn't want you to know about that! I don't like junk that Have to be connected to a PC!!! MP3 cassette Disadvantages: 1.Sequential play only. 2.MP3 is just a little too math intensive for me to develop, and I hate having to buy a black box that I don't understand. By the way I did record music on floppy disks in the early 80's, and I still have them. And paper tape! (but I never built a paper tape Player).-- mr2560, Jan 09 2003 Why does this remind me of DCC?-- supercat, Feb 07 2003 // tape is almost as long lived as records compared to anything else //
Yes and no: it needs careful curating to avoid deterioration and print-through (transfer of data between adjacent layers on the spool). Link.-- JKew, Feb 08 2003 There's a program, called HamDream, that was originally intended to send 2.1Kbps compressed speech files over Ham radio. I found out that you can record the encoded signal it generates onto a cassette tape and play it back into the program and get the digital sound back. 2.1Kbps is totally useless for anything but acapella rap music, but this is with 2.8 Khz mono bandwidth. If you used the full bandwidth of the cassette, I'm pretty sure you could get 16Kbps sober (non-joint) stereo MP3 music.-- Amishman35, Dec 15 2004 I'd like to point out that if a 90 minute cassette (Metal) has a frequency response of say, 30-18,000 Hz, that isn't too much under what a CD can hold, although once you add in the error-detection information etc, it would be... Well, alot more then 16kb/sec, which you could easily do over a 56K modem and that operates with a 5,000Hz range (being a bit generous) But let me point out the one, fundemental flaw in all of this. Let us assume that you store a 128Kb/sec stream on an audio-cassette. (None of us would have the tools required to fully utlize the true bandwidth of a cassette). What you have done is, through many complicated steps, much trouble, and much spent time, managed to store a digital file, on an analogue medium. Now 128Kb/sec is probably, overall (encoded using the Mpeg-Layer3 schematic), inferior to what this Metal cassette could store if you simply popped it into your Tape Deck, and pressed the "Metal", "Dolby B", and "Record" buttons, and let it at it. And any cassette deck could -really- play this back. True, some without metal bias settings might sound a bit tinny, but finding one to play it would be no problem. If you encoded it to MP3, you've used a wonderfully well spread format to store information it was not deisgned to, and so, regardless of longitivity of media, since nothing would ever expect MP3 information on an analogue cassette, you're pretty much the only person who can play them, and only while the one or two Cassette players you outfitted work. And only while the cassette and players remain in tip-top condition, since you've gone and gotten rid of one of the other wonderful properties of analogue medium; they're willing to overlook any small errors if your ear is. If you just burned the MP3s to a CD, at least you could be certain that in 20 years, there's bound to be at least 1 CD player still operational in your house, ditto if you just recorded it to a cassette the way it was intended to.-- {WhiteFang}, Jun 19 2005 I don't know why I didn't think of this when this idea was first posted, but this is pretty much what DCC does - Digital Compact Cassette. [link]-- BunsenHoneydew, Jan 11 2007 Using WinDREAM (uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), I was able to store 6.9 kilobits per second of AAC mono on a cassette deck with a split second dropout every few seconds. Of course, if I could re-compile the program, I'd make it do it in stereo at 13.8 kbps. It would play almost-intelligible stereophonic music that way(the working mono one sounds pretty BAD). I'd give a conservative estimate of 2.5 megabytes of storage on a 60 minute tape using good error correction.-- Amishman35, Jun 08 2007 random, halfbakery