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Software Distribution By Vinyl

Posted by timothy on from the when-obscurantism-attacks dept.

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."

9 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Increasing amount of data. by Phucilage · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder if you'll be able to pull the same ole trick w/ this method as you did with music. If you used lighter grooves, you able to pack more music in, it'd just be more quiet, deeper grooves was louder music, but less of them.

  2. Re:Data on vinyl done before by shippo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I acquired three such flexi-disks on the front cover of UK computer magazines around 1982 to 1984. Only got a moderate success rate with them. One was an adventure game, with a prize awarded amongst those who could solve it. I had reverse engineered the workings of the game compiler used to create the game, so solving it should have been easy, but I couldn't get it to load at all.

  3. Not first post... by tgv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't think this is a primer. I remember a magazine (perhaps Keyboard Magazine) that had a disk with software in the 80s. And of course, there was the Dutch radio that broadcasted software over FM...

  4. It's hardly a first by stx23 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Diverse artists such as Tomita, Shakin' Stevens & the Thompson Twins distributed software on vinyl over 20 years ago.

    http://www.kempa.com/blog/archives/000053.html

    OH DEAR.
    a bat bit

    you.

  5. Pete Shelley (ex-Buzzcocks) did this in 1983 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    check out the album XL1 by Pete Shelley (ex-Buzzcocks). apart from being a great album,
    the last track on this album called "zx spectrum code" contains computer graphics for the sinclair zx spectrum computer. see http://freespace.virgin.net/pete.shelley/xl1-01.ht m
    cheers, lars

  6. Re:Data on vinyl done before by moon-monster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There used to be a few speccy games on vinyl. In fact, a few 80's pop acts (Thompson Twins, Shakin' Stevens) released some as B-sides on some of their singles.

    Apparently the game wasn't very good.

    There's some more info on previous data-on-vinyl experiments here.

    --
    "Pokey, are you drunk on love?" "Yes. Also whiskey. But mostly love... and whiskey."
  7. Re:Hasn't this been done before? by Bigman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone remember that the BBC also transmitted BBC-Micro programs using Teletext pages? (as mentioned on this page) I never had a BBC Micro but my cousin did. You could either copy the pages off the screen or if you had a teletext adapter the computer could fetch them. They did this right up to 1987.
    Ahh, the old 8-bit days......

    --
    *--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
  8. Re: 3 grooves by cosmic_0x526179 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Matching Tie and Handkerchief" has two parallel groves on one side. No mention of the material on the second track either. I always wondered why that side played so fast until I accidently hit the hidden track one time.

    --
    This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
  9. John Logie Baird by maharg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    John Logie Baird recorded 30 line video onto 78rpm records in 1928. He also demonstrated a 600 line HDTV colour system in 1941.

    See http://www.answers.com/topic/john-logie-baird

    There's nothing new under the sun !

    --

    $ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
    @(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.