Nobody ever used the IBM PC with a cassette tape recorder... until now.

[@LGR]

Great to see a video of this in action! I've only ever attempted the diagnostic cassette myself, so this was a fun watch. I was looking out for IBM PC cassette stuff the whole time I was at Computer Reset last year but sadly didn't come across anything. Also that ancient LGR footage is painful, haha. Of all the videos that need a serious remake, that's near the top of my list.

[@trevorpomroy550]

Indeed! I've got 3 5150s. A little ashamed of myself that I haven't tried it yet.

[@vwestlife]

Do you still have that ugly chair?

[@LGR]

@@vwestlife Absolutely, the ugly chair is too ugly to die

[@DanielLopez-up6os]

But i love those old LGR vids!

[@trevorpomroy550]

@@LGR Old LGR vids have a certain refreshing edge to them. Do they not?

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

I LOL'd hearing Dave Jones on your tape there!

[@NanoBurger]

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!

[@BertGrink]

Didn't Clint (LGR) have a brief cameo as well?

[@ballsrgrossnugly]

It's a trap for young players, but you're in like Flynn!

[@MoosesValley]

There's the serial number for those playing along at home.

[@youreperfectstudio4789]

Yes me too!!

[@waltersmetak]

The knowledge this man has of archaic, long forgotten technology boggles the mind.....amazing!

[@NorthWestOutlaws]

All the first gaming computers where like this, I remember this from that's days of C16 and the C64, but it's good to see.

[@shpluk]

you probably have roughly the same amount of knowledge, just give it time to get archaic :)

[@LordGryllwotth]

And it is on youtube to be deleted one day. I wish we had some wikipedia for this stuff.

[@craigisrael7235]

Maybe because we were there ...duh

[@davidkonstam2377]

I was going to say you just need to be old enough to remember this 🤣

[@EEVblog]

3:09 LOL!

[@baroncalamityplus]

I used an early IBM PC and a cassette recorder in school to save our work. I was so glad when I got to high school and their computers had floppy disks.

[@greenaum]

Sure it wasn't an Apple II? Seems much more likely.

[@baroncalamityplus]

@@greenaum It was an IBM. I was in the business track at the time and they got access to IBMs where as most everyone else had Apple II +

[@henkbarnard1553]

Same.

[@davidkonstam2377]

That was the primary storage device on our Tandy computers in high school. That was what was weird about the statement that nobody ever used this input (unless the statement was about IBM PC 5150 specifically).

[@robertrose3905]

I do remember my 5150 having a cassette port, never got around to using it for loading and saving programs but I did use the relay for some very early home automation to drive a second relay with 240v contacts. Surprisingly I didn't electrocute myself in the process!

[@LightTheUnicorn]

Very cool to see, even if it's extremely limited in use. Recording music to cassette using that port is equal parts silly and glorious!

[@andrewlankford9634]

Not very reliable, at least with the TI-99/4a cassette interface I tried using. Same problem with a SYM-1.

[@kronos5385]

I worked at IBM when the 5150 was introduced. I bought one of the first ones using the Employee Discount Program. My PC came with 16K Ram soldered in the first bank and 3 empty 16K banks for future upgrade. Ram was very expensive back then. It also came with a very anemic 65 watt power supply making it almost impossible to add the first 10 MB hard drive. The 5160 (XT) that replaced it addressed a lot of these deficiencies. Mine came with no floppy drives as IBM was charging $400 for a single sided diskette drive. So I used the cassette port and a standard Tandy audio cassette recorder. Since Basic was in Rom I could save and load programs to the cassette just using standard audio cassettes. As I recall it was 1500 baud saving and loading and it was rock solid, never failed me once. At the same time I had a TRS-80 (first generation) but that cassette interface was only 300 Baud. It was always unreliable and even though it said the file was successfully saved it would only reload once out of every 10 times or so. So frustrated with that I sold the TRS-80.

[@adamlipsky8010]

Seeing my old tape deck (Tesla B115) in one of your videos was definitely a big surprise.

[@ActionRetro]

Loading files from tape sounds like science

[@jamesslick4790]

Though rare on an IBM, using cassettes to store data was common on early home computers like the Commodore VIC 20,TI-994/A and TRS-80 Model 1. Some, like the Commodores used a dedicated recorder, Others used just about anything. I stored TI-994a and Timex Sinclair 2068 data on an old 5" reel to reel recorder. What's the fun in saving data to tape without spinning reels, LOL.

[@CptJistuce]

@@jamesslick4790 I've never wanted to use the tape port on my 4a until now. Gotta get a reel-to-reel first, I guess.

[@jamesslick4790]

@@CptJistuce If you find the right cable you can attach 2 tape recorders to your TI! PS the reel to reel I used was not a fancy audiophile deck. It was a battery powered mono unit that was already 10 years old at the time. (Radio Shack Universal 505 -made by JVC Actually). it used 5 inch reels. mono 3.5mm mic in,3.5mm earphone out and a "remote" plug. just like any old mono "slab" type cassette recorder! Edit, If I recall, I did have to change the 2.5mm remote plug on the TI cable (the recorder used a barrel jack, IIRC) You also might have to reverse polarity on even a 2.5mm on some cassette recorders (The 99/4a was supposed to be picky for some reason). Good times in the 80s messing with different "home computer" hardware. 🙂

[@CptJistuce]

@@jamesslick4790 I've actually got a couple of the official TI cables. Apparently, dad used the tape recorder for a bit, but was very glad to upgrade to floppies. But using reels instead of compact cassette takes it from annoying to classy!

[@jamesslick4790]

@@CptJistuce LOL,it did! Plus as a man of err..umm a certain age, I associated data on tape with reels of tape like a micro version of a Univac installation. 😛

[@ovalteen4404]

BASIC used 8-character file names. The extension was not part of the name, but a letter indicating file type: 'M' for data that was BSAVE'd, 'P' for a protected BASIC program, 'A' for an ASCII BASIC program, 'B' for a tokenized BASIC program, or 'D' for generic data. It would be hilarious if DOS included cassette support.

[@aaron74]

Wow! Interesting info!

[@greenaum]

With a sound card lead, and a tape recorder if you can find one, it wouldn't be hard to add a driver. For DOS it would be fairly easy, Windows a bit harder. Obviously you'd have to buffer the file into RAM and couldn't do much til it had loaded. Perhaps have it load in the background, or else have a "Loading..." bar fill up as it goes. Even without a sound card, I think the IBM PC's tape hardware was pretty simple, can't be too hard to reproduce it and stick it on an ISA card, a handy feature of the early PCs, everything could go on the ISA bus. Then the problem would be getting BASICA, the only software I heard of that could access the tape drive. That came on ROM on the 5150. Still, you could burn an EPROM and stick that on your ISA card too, why not? It'd be amazing running Windows with a cassette drive. Not to boot from, I dunno if a human lifetime would last long enough to keep swapping the tapes, never mind the tape player. But you could maybe load a JPEG. Oh if only I weren't so lazy, and actually had the parts. Still there are crazy people out there who attach SD-cards to VIC-20s

[@ovalteen4404]

Granted, it wouldn't be hard to add support (though you'd also have to implement a file system from scratch too, since BASIC does both the file name handling and the data by itself), but having cassette support in the DISK Operating System is still a bit of a silly concept.

[@xiphod1337]

"DOS" having cassette support would be silly. BUT, the BASIC in my older IBM 5110 had disk support. Curious that no one (at Microsoft) updated the ROM BASIC to actually have disk support (as was found also in Commodores and Tandy BASIC ROMs -- not sure about Apple's BASIC). kzbin.info/www/bejne/m2Oqioqvj96Zpqc

[@douro20]

My 5150 came as a diskless workstation. It had a ROM with Datalight ROMDOS and a special network card to be used with the MicroTICCIT interactive video system. Mine came off of the local Air Force base and I don't think it saw a lot of use.

[@evana2261]

Its definitely possible not many used the system. As you probably know first hand years ago computer systems were a lot less convenient to use plus a lot of the old dogs hated them!

[@big0bad0brad]

Wow I didn't know Datalight was active that early - I know of them from reverse engineering the Casio Algebra FX series calculators; strange things, x86 with an NEC V30MX CPU and runs ROM-DOS. Flash memory and ROM were paged into address space and Datalight had a conversion utility to make .exe's run straight from the ROM/flash so that you could have a 300KB executable running when there's only 40KB of free RAM. I also ran into a decommissioned voice trunking box that ran ROM-DOS as well.

[@Boemel]

Love the fact u can watch a Vwestlife video and the format hasn't changed in 10 years. Btw this reminds me i have a whole box full of new sealed computer cassettes bought at GB supermarket in Belgium, now long gone.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Great stuff! Nice to see this finally demoed. I like how the diagnostic program breaks out of basic after the second phase of loading. I used to use Music Construction Set a lot on the Apple II when I was a kid and I think it does a better job of making 4 voices from the beep speaker on the Apple. What do you think? (Neither sound actually good though)

[@danieldaniels7571]

I used Music Construction Set on the Commodore 64 and Apple //gs. It was quite glorious on both of those. I actually ran the sound output from my gs through my stereo.

[@steviebboy69]

@@danieldaniels7571 I had Music Construction Set, and Musicalc, and another I cant remember its name similar to the first except with Colour to the screens.

[@jaykay18]

Well, you did it. I actually learned something. I never knew about the MOTOR command or the CAS1: specification. And I always wondered how you'd be able to use the cassette from disk BASIC, not that anybody ever would... I had a PCjr growing up, and that indeed, as you had mentioned, had a cassette port and relay. I remember hearing that relay in the computer. In fact there was a program that took advantage of the PCjr's sound, written in BASIC if I recall, called Personal Musician. There were a number of pre-programmed songs in the program, and during one of them, the relay in the PCjr would click and all you'd get was PC speaker sound. In fact, the speaker on the jr's monitor would go silent, I could be mistaken but I believe that was done on purpose so you wouldn't get cassette program sounds playing on the monitor's speaker. Anyway, Personal Musician wasn't supposed to do this, it was definitely a bug in the program, and I never knew what caused it or understood it. It would leave the computer in an "inconsistent state" with the cassette motor running; I don't remember if a simple reboot would toggle it back off or if it required a full power down. Now I'm going to have to look for that disk that contains Personal Musician and see if it's still readable, and take a look at the source code so I can see what might have gone wrong. I am fairly certain that at age 13 or so, when I was the typical nerdy computer kid, transferring programs from disk to tape and back again through BASIC would have been at the top of my priority list. It certainly would have been something none of my friends had ever done. Wait, a nerdy computer kid with friends? I must have dreamed that part up. Would have been pretty cool to say I've done it, only to be dismayed that my next computer had no cassette port, nor provision for an adapter of any kind. The "Oh Christmas Tree" part, using the relay for the pendulum on the clock, was brilliant nerdliness at the most elite level. That's coding on the bare metal, right there. I had read about the music on the cassette port through Music Construction Set. Now it's been demonstrated, and my life is complete. It wasn't all that uncommon, I know a couple of Epyx programs on the Apple II would allow use of the cassette port for audio.

[@rashidisw]

On BasicA/GW-Basic, i accidentally learn about its existence by mispressing Alt+M

[@sandakureva]

5:07 That "FWSHH" noise when he powers up the monitor brings back so many warm memories.

[@1foreverr]

Love your videos. I’ve been watching your channel for at least 10 years.

[@bwc1976]

Nice, I remember hearing Cassette BASIC mentioned before, but never actually saw it in action until now.

[@c128stuff]

Not the first one to do so.. I did this in 1984 on a borrowed IBM PC.. floppies were expensive, and I wanted something for loading/saving my basic experiments..

[@dogwalker666]

Indeed you beat me to the comment I did the same.

[@elantric]

Of course tape backup was all many used pre 1984 on Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore VIC-20, C-64 , even old Roland Synthesizers stored programs on "data tapes" full of FSK tones

[@vmsysprog]

Same here. I used.the cassette interface a few times to determine if it worked.

[@brentgoeller8257]

I appreciate you shooting this. I've always been curious how you would use the cassette port if you were bonkers enough to want to.

[@huntercarver1851]

I remember them but never remember someone using one. This is the strangest concept.

[@danieldaniels7571]

Hunter Carver It wasn’t so strange in the early ‘80s. It was done occasionally with the Apple ][+, somewhat with the earlier TRS-80 models, was the most common way of using a TI-99, and I think also the only way to use a Timex/Sinclair 1000. Commodore Vic-20 and Plus-4 also commonly used cassettes, but they had a dedicated datasette drive that was way more reliable than using cables to a standard cassette recorder. The earliest home computers didn’t come with floppy drives, and adding one was often more expensive than the cost of the computer itself. Especially with the TI-99, because you had to buy the expensive Expansion Box, and then add a floppy drive to it.

[@brentgoeller8257]

@@danieldaniels7571 true, but the IBM PC was built for disk loading. It was like they only put the cassette port for some type of legacy support. The same deal with my Tandy 1000. Thats what I had as a kid but I had 2 floppies built in. I never used cassette and after figuring out the port was there, I wondered how to make it work but never could. Ofcourse I was like 7 at the time.

[@TransCanadaPhil]

Daniel Daniels yeah I had a Vic 20 in the day and loaded games and other programmes off tape all the time. The Commodore had it's own custom "Datasette" tape deck with a dedicated multi-pin data cable that connected it digitally to the Vic like any other direct computer periphreal. The tape deck itself did all the D/A conversion on-board, with its own custom circuitry so it didn't have any kind of volume/mic levels to set or anything like that. It just did all the analog/digital conversion itself and sent it as pure digital computer data to the Vic over ths custom multi-pin cable it used.

[@brentgoeller8257]

@@TransCanadaPhil plenty of machines were designed with the soul purpose of tape storage. I've used tapes for c64, vic20, Timex Sinclair. Heck the Sinclair QL had its own tape designs. DOS, on the other hand, is Disk Operating System. It has no commands built in for loading from tape.

[@davidmulqueen8322]

the unclosed quote at 10 minutes will give me nightmares

[@mushroomsamba82]

16:50 Electronic Arts! I wonder if they ever came out with any DLC for this tape...

[@bwc1976]

EA and its offerings were actually quite amazing and innovative back in the day.

[@chezsnailez]

~le sigh~ that baud screech hits us in the feels...

[@8_Bit]

That's really cool how the IBM PC version of Music Construction Set could play out the cassette port. That's something the C64 version didn't (and couldn't) do, but then you could just hook up the audio out from the AV port to a regular cassette deck (not the Datasette) and record the SID output directly.

[@danieldaniels7571]

Music Construction Set and sound on the C64 was SO MUCH better.

[@osgrov]

Wow. Finally getting to see how this works, that's incredible! Thank you so much! The real gem here was hearing you can use Music Construction Set to record onto tape. I had no idea! That's really cool.

[@piwex69]

I had 5150 with 3rd party hd (10MB!) and 1,2M fdd. I was aware about the cassette port, but had not imagined any use of it, after my cassette experience earlier with Ataris.

[@Leonard1977ful]

This was so cool. I didn't realize computers at one time used cassette tapes. Wow! There's always something new to learn.

[@5roundsrapid263]

This was the first computer I ever used. We had only one in the school, and I got to use it in kindergarten. It even loaded programs from cassette.

[@JayMo183]

Those of us who were hobbyists back then used audio cassette recorders with our S-100 buss computers which were available many, many years before the birth of the IBM PC. Those computers ran the CP/M operating system.

[@OzRetrocomp]

3:13 that crossover is a real Bobby Dazzler!

[@stonent]

250 Baud!? You could transmit to the moon on 250 Baud!

[@JohnFourtyTwo]

@@stonent And their computers were less powerful than todays pocket calculator.

[@JelloPotate]

To be fair to Clint, that review is ancient.

[@ct1660]

The 5150 we had at the warehouse had the 5-pin connector hooked up to a Califone tape recorder. Whether it was original or not, I won't truly know.

[@EmergencyChannel]

Califone made tape players for schools and industry. The supplier that sold the computer probably sold Califone tape players as well.

[@ffmfg]

I remember we did use the cassette interface for the very first month(s) we got our PC compatible. It only had 128KB RAM on board, and looked like an older "computer in a keyboard" type of thing. But it had 4 extension slots. So before we got RAM upgrade and floppy controller, we sorta played a little with loading games from cassettes. But although interface was way faster than on our previous computer (which was an 8-bit era machine), even the smallest PC games were way bigger, so loading was very, very slow. We couldn't switch to floppies fast enough. One interesting thing I remembered while watching the video: that cassette interface on our PC compatible must have been used to transfer some old data (mostly text files) saved on the old micro to tape. I don't remember the details, but there must have been some special software to read "foreign" tapes, as t I don't remember anything else that could have been used to transfer that data (we didn't have a sound card, and also software to get binaries from audio from old computer tapes didn't exist back then). I've looked in my archive and I found at least one text file I definitely remember typing on the old pre-PC computer. Feels weird looking at the text I typed in the 80s :)

[@fhwolthuis]

Very interesting, Kevin! I remember saving and loading software on basic computers but never saw it used on a PC! 👍

[@WowplayerMe]

I've seen so many other retro computers with tape interfaces but I had no Idea the original IBM PC had one. great video & I learned something new today. Thanks!

[@rricci]

Here is myt 2nd amusing tale on the IBM PC. In 1985, I went to a college class that taught keyboarding, Word Perfect, Wang word processors, dBase and Lotus 1-2-3. Well, In the keyboarding class, we used the IBM PC in cassette BASIC for keyboarding practice. Now, looking at white letters on a black background gets boring, wouldn't you say? Well, I knew the COLOR command in BASIC so I decided to spice things up and add color. Hey, it wss 1985!! I want color damnit! So I issued a color command and got some nice 16 bit color. The guy next to me saw that and asked me "Hey! How did you do that???". I showed him and he started messing with the color on his display. The person on the other side of him did the same, until the whole back row had these display with various colors. The teacher came over to see how we were all doing. She was startled and asked "How did you do this?". They all pointed to their left meaning the person to their left, but it looked like they were all pointing at me, who JUST happened to be at the far left seat. That is how the Color Wars of 1985 began.

[@paulisthebest3uk]

Oh wow I had no idea about this. I had a 386 model 55SX once, (obviously too new for the cassette port) but it did boot straight into ROM IBM Basic, because the hard drive failed. I always thought at the time BASIC on these was just something to fall back to when the internal drives crashed for a bit of fun, not as a serious basic interpreter. I didnt even know any IBM X86 compatible PC could load and save from cassette, being from the UK - we was used to cassette storage, especially on systems such as the Spectrum, Commodore 64 etc. Great video i love the fact i could hear how the tape audio sounds too when loading (or saving), sounds just like a Spectrum actually just a bit different with the program header. Really enjoyed that video

[@theR1ddle]

6:45 Ah, yes. The good old sound of bits and bytes. That brought back some long ago memories.

[@cdk1473]

I went to school in the 80’s and we had these computers. This was my introduction to the computer world. The cassette tapes had programs for elementary and middle school students.

[@peterlamont647]

I have often wondered about the cassette port, too! I never even saw an option to write to tape in MSDOS. Wow! I just finished watching and ... just wow! I have never seen that port work in all my years! Fantastic research you have done to get that thing working! I have a few XT computers laying around and I will likely use this video as a reference if I ever get around to fixing/repairing/using them! Also, very very jealous of your versacorder. I have been looking for one for ages and they are all broken/overpriced/ more recently complete unobtainium. I haven't even seen one for sale in a year. I ended up buying a panasonic RX-D55 unit since it also does MP3 cds and USB + tape. I just wish I had the option to do multi-speed tapes because you can record a whole talk radio show while you are asleep. *sigh* oh well...maybe one day I'll do a crazy mod on my RX-D55 to do multispeed. Other than that, I really have enjoyed my Panasonic. Great buy if you want a new full size tape player that isn't rubbish. Sure it's not a 1990s pioneer cassette changer with dolby noise reduction...but I never had that when I was a kid either. I just recorded music off the radio onto my reasonably priced single cassette boombox. If I wanted to copy a tape I had to use the family boombox in the living room. It had dual cassettes!

[@BoydWaters]

Oh that lovely sound of those characters blasting into your machine at a blazing 1500 baud! This is a great walk through. I had forgotten lots of the details... I don't recall my Tandy tape recorder having a "P" volume setting. Nice!

[@Teddysad]

My vintage shows a little when I recall my early program input was via self punched cards admittedly on bigger machines than a pc. The cassette was a big improvement.

[@bfs5113]

Mine was front panel switches and paper tape.

[@ForgottenMachines]

Oh, this is an EXCELLENT video, thank you! Excellent, thorough research, and it answers ALL of my questions about this enigmatic Cassette port on the back of my 5150...thank you!!!

[@ramakrishnamishra8179]

Love that digital data sound!

[@edward_grabczewski]

Very helpful and comprehensive video. It's one of the main reasons I bought my IBM 5150! Thanks!

[@anumeon]

an LGR slam?? I never thought i'd live to see this day.. You, sir have toppled the internet... :D

[@mikolasstrajt3874]

Inspired by this video, I tried something similar - using ham radio software called Soundmodem I recorded some text messages to the tape. Then I played it back to the computer and decoded it back. This actually works very well and without errors, because this software is designed to send packet radio data via radio, which can be obviously somewhat noisy.

[@jeromeglick]

Interesting. I wonder what the bit rate is for Soundmodem?

[@dlarge6502]

I still love the idea of loading and saving data to a ribbon of magnetic tape. Cassettes are fantastic, more interesting to look at and hold than an SD card will ever be (beyond wondering why the SD write protect switch isnt a switch) so it makes me all fuzzy and excited to write data to them just like when I was a kid and thats all I had (till I "borrowed" my uncles 1541 floppy drive which he never asked back so I guess its ok for me to keep "borrowing" it). Also, my first PC, which I actually built myself from donated parts, was a 486 built into one of these cases. I so wished that I kept the case.

[@rricci]

I have 2 amusing stories for you all. I'll post one here and the next one in a 2nd post In 1985, I went to a college class that taught keyboarding, Word Perfect, Wang word processors, dBase and Lotus 1-2-3. At the time, I had a Radio Shack Model III with 2 disk drives so I knew how to format and copy disks. One of the teachers was explaining how to do that. He wasn't a good explainer because even though I knew what to do, his explanation was confusing. So I relied what what I knew from my TRS-80. The commands were the same, though on the TRS-80 the main drive was :0 instead of A: and the 2nd drive was :1 instead of B:. So using my experience, I plowed through faster than all of the students. A couple of them asked me "Did you understand him???". I said "Nope, but I have a computer at home so I know how to do this. Now, before I go on, I want to ask you: Have you ever heard of someone self imposing detention on themselves? Well, I did. The other students asked if I could stay after and teach them. I said yes and for the next couple of days, I stayed aafter and help them. That's how I "earned" detention on my first day in computer class.

[@AWalYT]

Nice to see this feature in demonstration. I grew up with messing about with my grandfathers Model 100 Portable, but he had a PDD2, and for some odd reason I had used that model of tape recorder for studies but never found an actual cable to use it with the a computer. It wouldn't be until years later that I'd have an experience with the whole tape loading/saving functions, first on the Famicom, then later for a different Model 100 I got for some things I'm working on currently.

[@diggydude5229]

I made my first Model 100 cable myself from a schematic I found online. I later found a nicer one on Ebay. Pretty sure someone on Ebay still makes them. The same cable works with the CoCo.

[@ToTheGAMES]

LGR, EEVBlog, what more? I want more! I love this.

[@IrishCarney]

That trick of using the cassette's speaker to produce better sound than the computer's own built-in speaker is something I remember also being done with the TRS-80 Model III and 4.

[@DoogieLabs]

This was really fun to watch, and I've always wanted to mess with it or see a demo of it. Thankyou!

[@Trance88]

It's so cool how tape memory works. The computer is essentially "downloading" the data from the tape, which I assume is very similar to how dialup internet works, since the sounds are very similar.

[@algorithminc.8850]

Enjoyed this - thanks. Just got out of storage the IBM 5150 that my dad and I picked up, as it was released. Got most of it working again (bad electrolytic capacitors for the most part) ... great fun. Enjoying your channel - subscribed - all sorts of interesting bits on it. Cheers

[@bernieharperyt]

We had a later XT and used the cassette port every day to back-up to cassette tape before shutting down. But it was so reliable we ended up only using it once a week. The cassettes were expensive and the tape speed was lightning fast, so the back-up rarely took longer than a minute.

[@pcressma]

Another amazing video by one of the best KZbinrs ever!

[@uxwbill]

From various technical books about the PC published when it was new, I'd been led to believe that the cassette recorder port was never fully implemented. I still don't think I'll tinker with it, but it's nice to know that it does actually work. If one could be scared up, a cassette deck recording at a higher tape speed might work with that DOS program.

[@21Trainman]

Do such things exist?

[@DADVICETV]

I had a Sanyo cassette deck that I used with my IBM PC back in the day (used to use it with my TI-99/4A). I can’t remember if the cable came with it or if I went to Radio Shack. I would use the cassette deck for other stuff and always forget to set the volume level correctly when loading programs, which always caused a headache.

[@danieldaniels7571]

I had a GE I used with my TI-99/4a and there was no one volume setting that always worked with every tape. It was so finicky I got in the habit of saving everything to cassette twice consecutively just in case.

[@Chyrosran22]

Very interesting! Didn't even know PCs could use cassettes!

[@tstahlfsu]

"TANDY Corporation, none of that RadioShack rubbish!" Dave cracks me up lol

[@RetroTechChris]

Computer Reset was indeed the place for anything PCJr... and it still is :-)

[@timmooney7528]

Great video. I'm not very familair with the early IBM's so it surprises me even more there was a tape interface available.

[@bf0189]

Loved the EEVblog sample on cassette!

[@MetalTrabant]

This is like a documentation video for future IT-history archaeologists to be able to follow your path on the way of obscure, almost forgotten technology :)

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

I remember these and the one I seen used the Tandy recorders too! Great memories! Thanks for the video! LLAP

[@LoftBits]

I remember that, for years, even when the built-in BASIC was long gone, the legacy code in most PC BIOSes would display "NO ROM BASIC, SYSTEM HALTED" when there was no HDD or FDD to load the OS from; only those initiated in the dark tape art of the 5150 knew what this message meant ;-)

[@TheFirstGroover]

I love to see this rare retro tech stuff. Just ease my mind. Idk why

[@matejpelcman6216]

Many years ago, I had computer called "Didaktik M", and at school we had computers named "PMD" and "Consul". All works with cassette player (by old rounded 5pin audio connector). The sound of loading or saving software/games was really "brutal", much better then old dial modems :-)

[@cornsyruptrucker]

Interesting names. Which country were the computers from?

[@matejpelcman6216]

@@cornsyruptrucker From Czech rep. Former Czechoslovakia. I remember that Didaktik M was from city named Trhové Sviny.

[@AmazingJeeves]

Impressive! I’m actually toying around with fixing up a 5150 and was thinking of soldering together a cassette cable to do exactly the sorts of things you’re doing.

[@rager-69]

Fascinating, especially the Music Construction Kit bit.

[@philipgrice1026]

I bought a PC Jr new from my local Sears Roebuck business store for $800. I added several 'sidecars' for my specific company project. The budget wouldn't run to my buying a full PC XT. The side cars included Lotus 123 in ROM, a printer port and the cassette interface to use as an archival data storage device. I'm glad that I never had to resort to retrieving any data from the cassette 'archive'. On several tests I conducted I found the tape speed variation caused by non concentric rollers in cassettes internal tape path would result in serious read errors even at the very low resolution then used. The net effect was for me to make long printouts of the data archived 'just in case'.

[@davidh8367]

We had a cassette recorder for an Atari 800 system back in the day. I learned both DOS and BASIC on that thing just a few years before the first IBM PCs (and clones) were readily-available

[@jimb032]

We have the same ctr82. :D. I used mine with my coco. I knew the 5150 had it but I never had one to play with it. I couldn't afford a 5150 in the cassette days!

[@capolaya]

Gosh, the 5150 series PCs is a beatiful looking machine. Wish I had one.

[@krnlg]

It has an incredibly robust feel and is very heavy. Guess the fits with the crazy price at the time!

[@nerysk3255]

Glad to see you’re still making videos! This popped up in my suggestions and instantly recognized your profile picture. I first watched your videos on an old account something like 10 years ago. Resubbed now :)

[@travis1240]

Cool. I knew cassette basic was a thing on the original PC but never saw it working with an actual cassette.

[@yesacoustic]

I had one of those IBMs on my desk when I first started work. When my employer upgraded us all to the PS/2, he offered the chance to buy the old one for $400. A lot took him up on the offer. I didn't, because I knew what I'd done to mine! (great keyboard though). That was a good video. You certainly know your stuff.

[@spartanx5806]

i really enjoyed your video ...i used the 410 atari cassette deck with my atari 400...until i upgraded to the 810 disk drive...brings back good memories..

[@Teddysad]

Wonderful bit of nostalgia. I spent a long time with (initially a System 80. a TRS80 clone. With 16K later taken to 48K). I know so well the foibles of cassette loading and tape quality . Actually ran a small business on it. Don’t get me started on the early printers.

[@aaron74]

OMG, fantastic video. I had no idea IBM PC had a cassette port. This is vintage tech JUST before I started using a PC back in 1985 (the early clones). I did use a cassette storage a lot with my TI 99/4A in the earlier 1980s. But by 1985 I was lucky to have a two 360KB 5.25" drive Leading Edge Model D, which was a premium clone in its day!

[@Zeem4]

I bought a 5150 in the 90s, and saved a BASIC program to tape just so I could say to myself that I'd saved a PC program on tape. I even listened to it through the speaker so I could hear what it sounded like. I ended up selling the 5150 to someone well-known in the CP/M and vintage PC scenes. It had a 10MB hard drive in it which clearly wasn't original, as the PC also had its original 63W power supply which wasn't powerful enough to spin up the hard drive's motor.

[@dougbergen8157]

Yeah had a 5150 back in the day. Never used the cassette port either. Had two 5 1/2 drives. Wish I had. Thx for your content.

[@flounder31]

As a kid who spent his first year on a TI-99/4A with cassette only, this is truly mind-blowing. To think, the mighty IBM PC - stooping to the level of loading from TAPE.

[@SeeJayPlayGames]

I did too. When I went to the Commodore 64, I insisted on getting a floppy drive - partly because it was required for Zork; also because I knew from experience that tape was slow. Little did I know that TI's tape interface was actually FASTER than the 64's DISK interface! Oy. Thankfully fastloaders helped; I got a WarpSpeed cart at one point and it improved it dramatically for things that didn't conflict with it.

[@ChristopherCobra]

We used one. The deck itself was a loaner. Used it to load some basic programs to port to abasic. I believe the deck was from an Atari 400 with an adapter - but you supposedly could use any deck that could do mono if you have the PS1 adapter. No baud issues. The system did not come with the cable - at least our did not. The typing tutor was no-place to be seen (we had the disk versions though). Good video. I wish I had kept my old system. But ya know - they were not exactly portable.

[@10p6]

Nice video that brings back old memories. The Spectrum had a pretty good tape system, the Atari was cool when software made use of the stereo head, the C64 was nasty but my fav was the Work Slate computer / Organizer as that early 80's micro cassette was fully automatic which was pretty cool.

[@roygillotti4615]

I used it a few times back in the early-90's when I got a hold of an IBM PC given away as junk from my High School, It was more a curiosity if it worked, was kind of neat having BASIC in ROM and what not. Just wrote a simple basic programs and read it back.

[@mullerandy]

*"Model five-one-five-zero"* How formal. :-)

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

SoSo :)

[@cookingwithchefjeff]

Totally his style.

[@diggydude5229]

5150 is a police code for a crazy person, which is what the name of the Van Halen album referred to.

[@MrDarchangelomni]

I have used a 5150 cassette port, with tandy ccr decks in the early 1990's, my high school science class had them, and we wrote programs in basic for chemistry and biology problems then would save them from basic directly to cassette. Then later the same year we got disk drives and also used an early CAD program, as well as LOGO to draw models, that we saved to disk. Logo would redraw every time you loaded it, because it just saved the draw coordinates.

[@stupossibleify]

Really good video. I've often thought about the user base for the cassette, and assumed any interest in it from IBM ended at the point of enabling it in BIOS

[@stonent]

Love the Mario ending!

[@acejon2162]

My first 2 computers use cassette tapes. First was the ZX Spectrum 48K, which I then upgraded to the Microdrive. One year later I sold it and upgraded to a Amstrad CPC464 which had a built-in tape recorder. I also upgraded it to the 3" floppy disk drive. My 3rd PC was a IBM compatible 8088 Turbo XT with dual 5 1/4" floppy drives, that was around mid 80s.

[@MoosesValley]

I've been re-exploring cassette tape lately as well (and also using paper tape, VHS tapes, and others). Used cassette tapes a lot when I first started with Apple ]['s and clones (1980), and used cassette tapes at home for the first 6 or so months of owning an Apple ][ clone (early 1983), until I could afford and buy a disk drive (around the middle of 1983). Was a very happy day when I finally got a disk drive !!

[@itsaPIXELthing]

What a nice surprise :) Great vid, mate!

[@surrodox]

3:12 Nice EEVblog recording here.

[@QUIZFILTER]

that was a funny bit

[@QUIZFILTER]

that was a funny bit... EEVblog always says something that gives me chuckle, love that guy.

[@onradioactivewaves]

It was woowoo

[@Narayan_1996]

Man, AMAZING! I absolutely loved this ♥

[@twocvbloke]

I have honestly never heard of using cassettes like this on an IBM PC, the only PC tapes I've experienced and used were DAT & DDS backup cassettes, which technically were doing the same sort of job, but not on a common audio cassette (well, bar the DAT tapes, I guess!!)...

[@danieldaniels7571]

I never really thought of that as the same thing, although I have used new old stock data DATs to record music on my DAT deck.

[@slightlyevolved]

DAT and DDS were nothing like this. Those are direct digital, there's no analog modulation/demodulation going on with those.

[@AMDXplusplus]

6:50 It sounds like a dial-up modem. C-10 tapes still exist in Japan.

[@tomwilson2112]

​@@tarstarkusz Yup. The 300 baud dialup modems use simple Frequency Shift Keying, where a tone is played at one of two different frequencies to determine a mark or space, which roughly got turned into 1 and 0 bits. Early cassette modems used the same technique, but with different frequencies. The Kansas City Standard, used on the Altair, used 1200Hz and 2400Hz. In fact, you could basically hook a tape adapter up to a telephone at each end and use them a modems, with the right tools. Another standard came up and was used by many 8-bit systems. Basically, the system counts the time between zero crossings of the waveform (when the wave comes down from a high voltage to a low one), and uses that to encode one of several values, including logical 1 and 0. I'm not actually sure how the PC encoded cassette data... that would be interesting to look into.

[@Bigbadwhitecracker]

Japan has everything.

[@leandrotami]

I was recently checking out docs of the interrupt vector and casually found the int that handles casette data. It was quite an interesting find! But I have no cassette port to try this out

[@b213videoz]

In the city where I was growing up (Kyiv, Ukraine) there were heaps of games sold on the cassettes for local IBM XT-like clone called "Poshuk 1", lots of games in fact - all pirated of course 🤪 9:04 hey I'm old enough even to remember I had to mess up adjusting the tape recorder's "head" (the component that actually reads the tape) with the screwdriver and adjusting the speed of the tape - adjusting the volume was the least of my worries.