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Mysterious 20-Year-Old Analog Media?
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?"
Show pictures and serial number, or buy us a crystal ball
a link to a photograph would be handy.
picture(1) == words x 1000;
That disk is from the future! It holds the encoding of DNA from the human race 100,000 years in the future! They have cured all major disease and live in a utopic creative society! Do you realize what you have got?!?! You can be on the cover of Time Magazine!!!!
One of the first programmable computers, I had worked on was old Olivetti programmable computer similar to P6060, or P6040. It had such discs. The machine looked like a typewriter, had no screen. The input could be read on a display with 2-3 input lines. It used a Basic type programming language.
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.
Anyone know what in tarnation this thing is and what we can do with it?
Play Frizbee?
Be relentless!
I am in possession of another mysterious media, said to be more than twenty years old. It is a black disk, perhaps 50cm diameter, made of a mysterious material that I have not been able to identify. The disk is light and has a small (~5 mm) hole in the middle. It has a spiral shaped groove covering the entire disk with and what looks like 'bands" where the spiral groove is cut deeper. In the outermost and the innermost bands it looks like there is longer between the windings.
Any idea what this could be? Could it be a media left behind by aliens trying to communicate with us?
Starting with this search: audio diskette, 1981-1988
Lead me to posts regarding compusonics who patented and marketted such a technology. Although whether it was analouge is questionable.
Regards, and I'd please let us know any outcome.
Alex
Play 20Q!
1. It is classified as Other.
2. Is it usually colorful? No.
Does it break if dropped? Unknown.
Does it come in a box? Unknown.
3. Do you hold it when you use it? No.
4. Is it manufactured? Yes.
Is it an electro-mechanical device? Unknown.
5. Is it found on a desk? Rarely.
6. Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? Yes.
7. Would you find it in an office? Doubtful.
8. Is it round? Yes.
9. Is it black? Yes.
10. Does it come in many varieties? No.
11. Does it roll? No.
12. Is it a tool? No.
13. Does it have a hard outer shell? No.
14. Do you wear it? No.
15. Can it be used more than once? Yes.
16. Can it be used for recreation? Yes.
17. Do you use it in your home? No.
18. Can you play games with it? Yes.
19. I guessed that it was a hockey puck? Wrong.
20. I guessed that it was a basketball net? Wrong.
21. Is it flat? Yes.
22. Does it usually have four corners? No.
23. I guessed that it was a trampoline? Wrong.
24. Is it something you bring along? No.
25. Does it get wet? No.
26. Was it used over 100 years ago? No.
27. Is it commonly used? No.
28. Can you make sounds with it ? No.
29. I guessed that it was a hologram? Wrong.
Eh, worth a shot.
He can't take a photograph because his other archaic recording device takes 110 film and he can't find it anywhere.
I think what you have might be a disk from a Dictaphone or other dictation/transcriber machine.
I'd start by contacting Dictaphone http://www.dictaphone.com/ , then maybe Google for other Dictaphone contacts, perhaps a museum or broker of "antique" electronic gear.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
You have come closer than anyone (on or off Slashdot) to hitting the nail on the head. Indeed this is voice dictation we're looking at. But not even the people who sent us the disc know anything about this medium or how to play it; I guess it came from pretty deep in their archives. Can you remember anything else about the machine you had? (brand, model, etc.?)
Tongue-tied guy calls the operator to place a call for him (this was back in the olden days).
"Opewater, please give me Susquehanna twee-twee-twee-twee."
The operator was amused by this, and asked the man to repeat the number several times as she called coworkers over to hear the guy say "twee-twee-twee-twee." The guy caught on, and said to the operator:
"Opewater, do you know Dictaphone?"
Operator says, "Why, yes, I am quite familiar with it."
TT Guy says, "Good. Then dictaphone up your ass and connect me to Susquehanna twee-twee-twee-twee."
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
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.
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.
You guys all suck. First place anyone should have looked was The Dead Media Project. A search on dictation turned up this possiblity:
The Recordon, aka the Mail-A-Voice, was a magnetic disc-based dicatation device made in the 50s. It used a paper-based disc (originally; later it used plastic discs) which in theory could be folded, mailed in an envelope, and played back. The media was sold by 3M but not made by them.
A search on DeadMedia for "magnetic disk" also turns up the Timex Magnetic Recorder, though it's believed this was never actually sold.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Have you checked with the folks on the Dead Media List started by Bruce Sterling some years back? http://www.deadmedia.org/
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.