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Vinyl Records Yield '80s Videogame Nostalgia

Posted by simoniker on from the tintin-would-be-proud dept.

Thanks to Kempa.com for its weblog entry discussing music vinyl/cassettes released in the late 70's and early 80's that contained computer programs as part of the audio. The article explains: "Most of these programs were written for the Sinclair Spectrum home computer series... In the case of these programs on vinyl, the user would have to play back the proper portion of the record, record the resultant chatter to tape, and load the tape into the Spectrum." It goes on to showcase UK vinyl-based games from "rockabilly revivalist" Shakin' Stevens ("The goal of 'The Shaky Game' is to drive Shakin' Stevens' car to the center of a maze while avoiding bats, who bite you"), as well as a flexidisc adventure game starring '80s pop stars The Thompson Twins ("...a bizarre text-based adventure in which you guide the [band] around a land of beaches and caves.")

8 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Using Vinyl.... by metrazol · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would like to say this is the dumbest thing ever described but... I was digging through some old stuff and found these odd clear plastic discs in some of my grandfather's stuff.

    They were navigation data and his service records from the air force...on floppy translucent plastic discs. Took me about 20 minutes to stop laughing, but they held up! Not going to plop them onto my turntable though. Just proves that when you give people a popular medium, they'll try and stick anything they can on it. CDs used to be for music, remember?

    --
    "Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
  2. In Soviet Russia... ;-) by PaulBu · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... before the DAT or even 1/2" tape drives became reasonably cheap some clever Russian hackers managed to make a setup to back-up data on videotape using more or less standard VCR and custom interface card. I've heard it worked pretty good, with some hundreds of MBs fitting on a tape". But then, again, it was in 1988 or something...

    Paul B.

    1. Re:In Soviet Russia... ;-) by jpmkm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hey I bought a backer32 at a garage sale for $1 last summer. I haven't tried it out yet. It is supposed to hold something like 2 gigs on a vhs tape and it interfaces through the parallel port. I don't think I'll trust my data to a medium designed to store analog video.

    2. Re:In Soviet Russia... ;-) by suyashs · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nowdays, a more reliable yet still cost effective solution would be to use MiniDV tape to record data. 5 GB per tape w/ error correction sounds reasonable to me, and considering that the data is recorded digitally end-to-end (via firewire), and recorded twice to compensate for the magnetic tape, this seems to be a great idea. It wont be as cheap as VHS, but its much cheaper than DLT or MO solutions.

      --
      http://chrono.posterous.com/
  3. Distribution Medium by leadfoot2004 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anyone see the irony of this in regards to the RIAA? Back in those days, people distribute their computer software via audio cassette tapes and vinyl records, a distribution medium monopolized by the RIAA. Now, we distribute nearly everything digitialized via the Internet, a medium that cannot be controlled by the RIAA.

  4. Some things never change... by realdddave · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's really not extremely different from today's 'enhanced' CDs. I wonder, though, if it was truly meant as a feature in those days, or if it was just a way to get those crazy college students to buy the album rather than swapping it for free. If you had to copy it to cassette to play the game anyways, I imagine the piracy-prevention didn't do much more than piss off the legitimate purchasers who just heard a bunch of binary when they wanted to listen to their music.

    Some things never change : )

  5. Stranglers - Aural Quest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The Stranglers had a text adventure on the tape copy of Aural Sculpture

    Read about it here

    http://www.stranglers.net/tapes.html

  6. Anyone remember the Spectrum CD thing? by paulcammish · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I have a vague memory of and old Codemasters collection on CD, which was sort of the same.

    If i remember right, there was a cart for the Spectrum, which plugged into the headphone socket on your CD player (a luxury back in 1987!) and then it would load games from the cd, at about 4 times the usual speed.

    I havent a CLUE what it was called. All I remember is a double page advert in Your Sinclair, with this device and a CD that was being sold with 40 or so Codemasters games.

    Anyone else remember this? If it ever existed, it could pretty much be one of the first CD-Roms!

    And for anyone whos wondering, heres an old game I wrote about the same time...

    Bwwwwwwwwoooooooo BIP! Bwwwwwwwwooooooo Beieieiieieieiieieiiieieieiieieieieie!
    Bwoooo Beieieieieieieieiieiieiiieieiieieieiieieieieieiiei eiei!