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Booting IBM PC from vinyl

Ye dang fools, ah was bootin' mah IBM PC offa telegraph befer ye's were in diapers!

B.. but you're only 30 years ol--

SHADDAP!
 
Retrohun did the boot into a game loaded via the cassette port almost 3 years ago. J.R. Bogin did it though a ROM design but nothing really precludes someone who wanted to from taking the two projects and merging them to make a cassette loaded program that in turn loads a DOS from cassette into what is effectively a RAM disk and then boots that DOS. The design does seem to need a very substantially upgraded 5150; this is not going to turn into a viable solution for a 64K 5150.

I don't understand why each variation on the theme uses a different audio device attached to the erstwhile cassette port. Is there some contest going on?
 
There's a unit on eBay now for USD$350. I suppose one might call this the first floppy disk. According to the commentary, foldable, too--try that with your favorite 8" floppy.
 
Plenty of people have managed to fold a floppy; it just doesn't work when unfolded. The magnetic coated paper Brush Mail-A-Disc which Timex licensed may have been easier to fold but probably suffers drop-outs at the fold rendering it unacceptable for computer data storage usage. https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/brush_mail_a_voice_bk_503bk50.html indicates a recording time of 3 minutes which would not be enough to store a 64 kB disk image.
 
Sure, but for nearly 70 year old technology, it was remarkable. Somewhere, there's a recording of the thing being used--it's not exactly high-fidelity. There was another system that used a grooved disk as well, but not foldable.

On the other hand, in 1953, how much core did the average mainframe have? :)
 
Hmm this devices look like that have external speaker. But when connected to cassette port - what it should be called in IBM 5150 computers era? Floppy cassette (Flopcas)? Audiofloppy disk (like VIdeo Floppy disk)? Audiodiskette?
 
That magnetic record bears an eerie resemblance to "3M Sound Page" system from the 1970's. (The latter is just "flipped"; the recording medium stays in one place while the recording head both moves inward and rotates in a spiral motion. I don't know how well that would take to having its pages folded, however...)

 
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