Re: Most overhyped Apple II product???

[campbelb@agcs.com (Brian Campbell)]

In article <5o46bf$ljd@flood.xnet.com>,
   jcompton@typhoon.xnet.com (Jason Compton) wrote:
>Steve Reeves (stever@gate.net) wrote:
>: 
>: My vote goes to the gizmo from Applied Ingenuity that promised to back up
>: your hard drive to a videotape.  I really wanted one of those.
>
>It's been done--I myself have a package for the Amiga that backs up about
>200 megs to a T-120 in LP mode.
>

Here's an idea that I thought of a while back.  I don't know
how practical it is, but some may be amused by it, anyway.

Seems to me that one could develop a system off of existing hardware,
something like the Visionary GS. It would be "merely" a matter of software
development.

For example, sofware could write patterns to the screen and a
VCR could capture that off the composite output.  Then the patterns
could be read back into screen memory using a video capture card.

There are a number issues.  Some are:
   Defining a data to video pattern mapping algorithm that supports
     reliably reading in what has been written.
   How much resoulution would be supported in the mapping.  Obviously
     32K per frame would be the Max, but I know that in practice it
     would have to be a lot LESS.
   Synching, to Allow patterns to be written at variable intervals, to address
     variable disk access speeds.

These are factors which would dictate how much data through put could be 
supported by such a scheme.


Brian Campbell
Room: H12
email: campbelb@agcs.com
       brian.campbell@worldnet.att.net
Phone: (602) 582-7556
AG Communication Systems
Phoenix, Arizona
http://www.agcs.com
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