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Mysterious 20-Year-Old Analog Media?

Posted by Cliff on from the can-you-identify-it dept.

discHead asks: "Presently I work for a transcription company. We received an interesting medium that we're having trouble identifying. It looks like a 3.5-inch floppy, but just the magnetic disc itself--no plastic shell, not even a metal hub in the center. It's punched with a small center hole and an additional wedge-shaped hole nearby (but in a different position and smaller than the rectangular hole in a standard floppy's metal hub). It's foil-stamped with a 3M logo and a serial number, but 3M referred us to Imation and Imation is stumped. Our only other clues: we're told it's an analog(!) audio recording and that it dates back to about 1985. Our Google research has yet to turn up anything. Anyone know what in tarnation this thing is and what we can do with it?"

8 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Analog? by fm6 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why is Imation so sure it's an analog disk? I've never heard of disks being used for magnetic analog recording. (There's vinyl disks, of course, but they're mechnical recordings.) And why would anybody create one? Once you go to all the trouble of creating the hardware to access the tracks, you're pretty much in the digital world anyway, and might as well go all the way.

    1. Re:Analog? by SA+Stevens · · Score: 4, Informative

      Analog disks have been used for magnetic audio recording in the past. They were used for voice dictation. I have owned such a machine in the past.

      'Hardware to access the tracks' is a worm gear. There's only ONE track, you see.

    2. Re:Analog? by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Informative

      There have been still video cameras that used analog signals recorded on magnetic discs. I've never seen these in real life, so I'm not sure if the disc is the one we're looking for.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  2. rec.audio.pro by poopdeville · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you have access to usenet, ask in rec.audo.pro. A dollar says Scott Dorsey knows the answer.

    --
    After all, I am strangely colored.
  3. Re:Huzzah! by mikiN · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have used such a device in the past. The media were disks with a spiral groove on one side. The groove was used to steer a magnetic recording/playback head. The device had a slider on the front to place the head anywhere on the disk.
    I used the device for voice recording and for primitive analog sampling.

    --
    The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
  4. Re:Another mysterious media - wow! an 18" record! by unitron · · Score: 2, Informative
    "Where can you get a turn-table that can play one of those?"

    In an old radio station's junk pile, perhaps. There used to be transcription disks (like what let Armed Forces Radio broadcast stuff like Bob Hope and Jack Benny to troops overseas during WWII) that were bigger than the standard 12" 33 1/3 rpm album. The old WMBL-Morehead City, N.C. studios on Radio Island had turntables with platters about as big around as garbage can lids.

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  5. Dead Media List? by wizzy403 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have you checked with the folks on the Dead Media List started by Bruce Sterling some years back? http://www.deadmedia.org/

  6. A photo for those who doubted its existence by discHead · · Score: 3, Informative

    Long overdue, I know: a photo of the mystery disc. As I said, it looks very much like the inner portion of an ordinary floppy disk. But we're told it's about 20 years old.