Hi everybody I have an old cassette recorder which has an input labeled “computer in” I tried to record a stereo signal onto cassettes but I got a lot of noise and not much signal, I would like to know it those data cassettes where recorded as stereo or as mono signals.
Did my question get through?
I’m not old enough to have used this technology and to be honest I didn’t find any information about it.
Does anybody know how do they work?
Possibly something along these lines?
Tape cassettes supported stereo, but your recorder seems to be very peculiar - it’s a “Computer Program Data Recorder”, right?
When you say “lot of noise”, you mean you can hear the original signal but heavily distorted? Or is it a completely different kind of sound, maybe like this? (WARNING: loud)
I’m not sure you’d get computer loading noises from any old tape, it would have to be from a tape especially recorded as data. Back in the 80s when I had a ZX Spectrum the only (affordable) way to get games into a computer was with a cassette. I might be wrong but any “computer in” socket on such an old tape machine probably wasn’t doing anything digital itself.
Looking at their website lloytron appear to be an importer of technology rather than a producer. Are there any other labels or names on it?
Thank you all for your answers.
It is not data noise. It’s actually White/Pink noise so loud it makes the recording barely audible.
I will try and record two different songs one on the Left channel and one on the Right one and then see if the recorder reproduces both or just one.
I can’t get any further info on the device itself. I even wrote to lloytron hoping to get a user manual but didn’t get any answer so far.
The cassette tape recorder that was used with the Radio Shack TRS-80 is similar looking. Found a manual for model CTR-80 that may be helpful.
maybe one of the various heads (read record etc) is dirty? We always used to get this problem back in the day. Also head alignment.
How can I check for this things?
It’s been a long time since I cleaned a tape head. If it looks brown and dirty (the muck is usually from the tape itself) then you might need to clean it. If the head alignment is out then there’s a little screw you can adjust.
Remember, we’re talking about a 40 yr old piece of technolgy that may have been a little bit cheap when it was made.
To clean the head, use a cotton bud with an organic solvent like white spirit or acetone (nail varnish remover). It’s worth doing whether it looks dirty or not.
Old tech can often have problems with capacitors drying out, and needing to be replaced. Also, rubber parts (belts, wheels, etc) degrade and sometimes can turn to goo. Plastic parts like cogs can crack.
Take a look at Techmoan’s YouTube channel, where he frequently deals with the issues of getting old equipment to work