Re: NEWSFLASH! Linux ported to Commodore VIC-20!!

Neil Conway (nconway.list@ukaea.org.uk)
Tue, 15 Sep 1998 09:03:29 +0000

Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:
>
> The Ohio Scientific P1 did it with a cheap DAC (which doubled as an on-board
> 300baud modem) and simply did raw bytes to/from the tape drive. No error
> correction, so loading from tape was always an adventure even if the tape
> was known good :-)
>
> I had to boot a Plexus P/60 from tape once or twice, but that was 1600bpi
> magtape. Again, it was pretty much raw data, albeit in the form of a
> filesystem image written to the tape.
>
> I agree with the question "why?" :-)

Actually, I've withdrawn the 'why?', because this idea actually has some
merit. For cheapos like me who happen to have a sound card, this is a
~free backup technique. If we really can achieve a good fraction of 1MB
(megabyte not bit) per minute of tape, then this isn't at all a useless
thing.

Some people seem to be scoffing at such high datarates, but I haven't
seen a good rebuttal yet...

Neil
PS: Have any of you guys had your kernel mailing list feed dry up
completely like me ?

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