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When was audio storage first used for computing?

The data cassettes with the notch are called streamer cassettes:
www.storagenewsletter.com

History (Late 1980s): Streamer Cassette

This article was published by the Museum of Obsolete Media. Streamer cassette (late 1980s-late 1990s) Streamer cassettes were a variant of the Compact Cassette, specially designed for data storage (but different from standard cassettes used for data storage with early home computers) and had a...
www.storagenewsletter.com www.storagenewsletter.com

Or "D/CAS":
en.wikipedia.org

D/CAS - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

They are not to be confused with the "computer cassettes" that were marketed for use with home computers. Those were simply shorter lengths of standard Type I audio cassettes, sometimes without the clear leader at the ends so you wouldn't risk losing data if you accidentally started recording right at the beginning of the tape.

20240409_150208-scaled-e1712668892573.jpg
 
vwestlife said:
The data cassettes with the notch are called streamer cassettes
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FWIW the notched form factor appears to predate the "streamer" semantics/usage. Here it is in a 1975 VDC industry report (The Data Recording Industry II):

1779291999019.png

In this earlier context for minicomputer data storage it had start/stop and seek-to-record mechanics. I think (??) the term "streamer" refers to nonstop recording/readback for bulk backup or data warehousing which I would guess dates to 80s-90s per the parenthetical in the link above.

(Boy is this straying from the audio data storage OP question...)
 
Interesting seeing the split between pro digital streamers and our old home machines, that 1975 VDC report is a great find bzotto

I went through the cassette days myself. First real machine was a ZX81 back in the early 80s. Loading and saving on a cheap tape deck was pure luck , sit waiting ages, then “Tape loading error” if the volume was even slightly off.
Still some debate on real “audio” storage. UNIVAC I in ’51 gets mentioned with its metal reels, but that’s not cassettes. Datapoint 2200 around ’70-71 used them as dedicated drives, as others said.
The hobbyist stuff really took off later with FSK tones on regular cassettes Scelbi ’74, Kansas City standard ’75-76. Your NEC PC-6001 landed right in the good years.
 
I thought it was considered a "streaming tape" because they tended to record the stream of changes, rather than, say, rewriting individual files or records.
 
antiquekid3 said:
Tennecomp was offering an audio tape (Fidelipac) data storage solution for PDP-8s as early as September 1968: https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com...s/Tennecomp_TP-1351_Magnetic_Storage_Unit.pdf
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It's interesting that the photos of the Sykes unit that show a cassette being loaded appear to be audio-grade cassettes, notch-free. The earliest reference that I've found is December 20, 1969 in Electronic Design. Since ECMA-34 (63 ftpmm, Phase Encoded at 32 bpmm) wasn't formally issued until September 1971 (although TC19 was formed in January 1970) both of these systems predate that standard. And anyway the Tennecomp system used a proprietary single-reel tape cartridge. I'll guess that they implemented phase-encoding.
 
Hak Foo said:
I thought it was considered a "streaming tape" because they tended to record the stream of changes, rather than, say, rewriting individual files or records.
Click to expand...
IMO "streaming" simply indicates that the drive electronics and tape media are not designed to encode and handle addressable blocks. Rather like standard 9-track tape. You get a BOT and EOT physical marker and basic transport handling of the tape. It's up to an external controller to organize the stream-of-bits however it likes. A block-oriented controller will expect that the tape transport has fast start/stop capabilities in order to be able to create/manage short inter-record gaps. Block addressing is going to depend on how the record is structured and the degree to which the controller can automatically scan the tape for the requested block without software intervention.
 
I have sent an enquiry at Bletchley Park regarding possible Hellschreiber recordings. If they had so, those would be the oldest digital data ever recorded on audio media, and would settle the debate on most aspects.

Let's wait for now.

Regards
 
pbirkel said:
Hmm, radio broadcasting. That's a new one on me. Thanks for pointing it out.
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I have been telling about radio stuff since page 1...
What distinguishes HS from other stuff is that it does not send any code, it transmits a digital image of the characters. If I had to describe its work principle, it is similar to a character ROM and a shift register, the serial line is broadcast and the receiver just prints the received signal as-is.
This equipment dates from 1929. Employed first time by the military during the Spanish Civil War, as part of Legión Cóndor. Employed extensively during WWII for its high fidelity.
Contemporary audio recording media: wax cylinders, aluminium 78 RPM disks...
And if there's someone that was listening to the German army during those times, it was the British Empire, so Bletchley Park should know.
 
pbirkel said:
Hmm, radio broadcasting. That's a new one on me. Thanks for pointing it out.
Click to expand...
"Carts" had all sorts of commercial and industrial uses besides radio. For example, churches used them to play pre-recorded carillon bells if they couldn't afford the real thing or lacked a bell tower. (It became obvious in the church I went to, when the cart eventually started wearing out and had audible dropouts!)
 
And as a side effect, the HellSchreiber might also be the first digitally-stored character generator ROM...
 
vwestlife said:
"Carts" had all sorts of commercial and industrial uses besides radio.
Click to expand...
Carts were used for years at the US Forest Service's Cradle of Forestry in North America exhibits for audio clips. Push button switches located at the viewing area of the exhibit would remote start the cart player, which would play its loop.

I still have a Tapecaster 700 recorder in my basement, sitting next to the Teac reel to reel. (https://reeltapevintagego.net/700-rp for what a Tapecaster 700 looks like)

The cart's greatest disadvantage is that it is a one way sequential access only medium; there is no rewind nor is there a safe way to fast forward, the whole loop has to play through. On the longer large format (B and C) carts this could be up to 30 minutes. The smaller formats A and AA were available in lots of different lengths, up to about 7 minutes total. More info at https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/carts.htm. (KRS made a reversible cart that could be rewound a limited distance, but those aren't standard Fidelipacs).
 
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