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From: manheimer@nbs-amrf.UUCP (Ken Manheimer)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Floppy audio?
Message-ID: <372@nbs-amrf.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 19-Jan-85 12:58:22 EST
Article-I.D.: nbs-amrf.372
Posted: Sat Jan 19 12:58:22 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Jan-85 08:49:12 EST
Organization: National Bureau of Standards
Lines: 32

I noticed in a recent issue of Stereo review (~ 2 or 3 issues back) a single
page article about a prototype of a new audio recorder that had just been
reviewed by the author.  The interesting thing about it was the effective use
of a standard computer floppy (I think 5 1/4", single side, double density) as
the recording medium.  With the benefit of what seemed to be an adaptive
sampling technique, over an hour of high fidelity music could be recorded on a
single disk.  (The last I heard in this vein, a computer music wizard could
fit 4 minutes of high fi per floppy; to play a synthesized version of
Pachelbels canon that he recorded he had to gang two floppy disk "players" and
go through a series of ~ 6 floppies!  The sound was fine, as far as I could
tell, though I was hearing it in a school auditorium...).  The reviewer said
that, while the sound may not be up to par with CD's, he felt it at least
measured up to any vinyl (or was it any analog medium?) around.  The price
mentioned was somewhere near $1000 (1100?).

Such a thing, if bona fide, has a lot going for it.  Foremost is the
opportunity to use it to to record as well as play back - the lack of which is
CD's chief drawback for me, followed closely by their expense.  On that count
floppies would be a much a more economical medium once their density could
measure up.  There too the technique ("adaptive sampling"?) could be applied
in many directions if it really works.

Has anybody heard more about this?  Unfortunately, I noticed the article while
perusing the store rack, and by the time I decided to go back and
(reluctantly) buy it the subsequent months issue had come out.  I haven't
found the issue in my library, and there wasn't too much info in the article
anyway.  I've been holding out on buying a tape deck, and if this thing is
genuinely hi-fi, with the inevitable (?) refinements of any onset technology,
it could mean the death of tape decks at least (turntables, CD's?  Maybe not, too many people have too much to lose there.).

Ken Manheimer		{seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!nbs-amrf!manheimer
			(Existence is influence.  Probably.)