Software Distribution By Vinyl

townxelliot writes "Beige Records is home to the intriguing 8-Bit Construction Set. Their record has the distinction of being "the first ever use of the vinyl recording medium for software distribution - the inside tracks are audio data which can be dubbed to cassette tape and booted in your respective atari or commodore 8-bit computers". Samples of their music ("entirely programmed in 6502 assembly language") are available for download."

Comments

Data on vinyl done before

[whaley]

Basicode (Hobbyscoop) was distributed on flexi discs..

Hasn't this been done before?

[Fred Or Alive]

This page has data on various vinyl records with computer data stored on them. Most of which are about 20 years old. So they're not the first to distribute computer data on vinyl.

Re:Hasn't this been done before?

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Software distribution using acetate (very flexible, cheap and light) records was very common in the UK around the early 1980s. They were the original "cover discs" on magazines!

I still have a few games, including an Othello/Reversi game for the ZX81 from "Your Computer" magazine.

The disadvantage was that you could play the acetate about twice before it got so damaged that it wouldn't play any more, so we used to record the record to tape first time.

Vinyl/acetate wasn't even the strangest way that computer software was distributed. I remember they used to broadcast games late at night on TV. You had to (carefully!) record the sound signal off the TV and onto your tape machine. Madness!

Rich.

OK - so not quite vinyl, but...

[mauledbydogs]

When I worked on Commodore User (UK mag) in the 80s, we gave away a flexi-disc as a covermount. It was basically a floppy plastic record. One side was a Heaven 17 track and the other, IIRC, was a datatrack designed to be recorded onto tape then loaded on a C64.

LT-TFA

[x2A]

If you Listen To TFA, you'll realise that this isn't just software written to vinyl, this is software encoded in music, that happens to be written to vinyl. That is, the assembly code, when played back, actually SOUNDS like music. This is completely different from having a data section at the end of a vinyl disc (for all of you who have been using that as a "this has been done before with..." example).

'tho listening to some Speedy-J tracks, sounds like there some data encoded in those!

-2A

reply from beige

[Anonymous Coward]

hi folks

thanks for the debate on our record, hope someone likes the music anyway. obviously not the first data on vinyl [just never bothered to change the webpage in 5 years] and actually not the first time the 8-bit construction set has been slashdotted. but nonetheless it's always a pleasure to see what people think.

we received an anonymous and very interesting email in early 2002 detailing some patents regarding software distribution on vinyl. i'm appending it below for interested parties.

thanks again
& peace out nerds

paul
paul AT beigerecords DOT com

*****
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 23:59:03 -0500

Distribution of computer programs on vinyl records
was done in the early 70's by several different
researchers. First, a guy named
Allan B. Chertok. He has several patents in this field,
which I would recommend that you guys read:

US Patent 3,662,350 (1972)
US Patent 3,740,733 (1973)
US Patent 3,662,354 (1972)

Also- Norman L. Harvey. This guys was a real genius.
Check out his patent: US 3,755,792 (1973).

This is not to say that your work is not "original"
and "cool". But please- give credit where credit is due!
*****