Re: Archiving disks to tape? (late 1970s)

[creator <creator@flyinghouse.com>]

On Oct 24, 11:26 am, schmidtd <schmi...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> On Oct 24, 1:34 pm, Patrick Schaefer <PSchae...@lycosxxl.de> wrote:>  > However I have never heard of such backup software, which I assume would
> >  > need to store whole-disk images to the tape, in whatever format. Did it
> >  > actually exist back in the day?
>
> > "Disk-O-Tape" by Dann McCreary. Distributed on cassette, around 1980. It
> > works like ADT, reading raw sectors and writing them to tape.
>
> After reading what writeups are available via Google, it sounds like
> it would be fun and easy to write.  If only it were useful today!
> Come to think of it, why would it have been useful in the day anyway?
> For archival purposes so that you could re-use diskettes, maybe.  But
> you need a physical diskette to reconstitute the data anyway...?

FYI, I originally wrote "Disk-O-Tape" for myself because at that time
a simple blank 5-1/4" floppy diskette cost about $5 (in 1980 dollars!)
and I could buy cassette tape 3-packs for as little as a buck! :)
That's five bucks to save 128K bytes!!!

"Disk-O-Tape" turned out to be a pretty popular seller (relative to
my other simulation software) probably because of that cost
disparity. I also was able to distribute the program (and others)
on a cassette because it incorporated a "bootstrap loader" with
a short one-liner typed into the Apple II monitor.

Of course it took about 15 minutes to save a full diskette, and
another
15 minutes to do a sector-by-sector compare/verify after rewinding
the tape... but SHORT diskettes would save/verify lots quicker.

Ah, memories of the "good ol' days"... :) The early days of
microcomputing,
kinda like the Wild West!  Lots of work, music, inventions, and
surfing
since then... :)

Meanwhile, let's all get together and save America for our
kids and grandkids by voting Dr. Ron Paul into office... :)

Best!

-Dann
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Dann McCreary http://flyinghouse.com   creator-at-flyinghouse.com
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