Date   : Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:08:26 +0000
From   : mfirth@... (Michael Firth)
Subject: Kansas City Standard

On 26/11/2010 19:42, Rick Murray wrote:
> On 26/11/2010 16:27, paul aslin wrote:
>
>> If you clever I'm sure the two tape players could be replaced
>> with some sort of bi directional amplifier.
> Not even sure an amp would be needed. For short lengths, it may well
> suffice to do:
>
>
>     BBC One                 BBC Two   ;-)
>
>     Mic ------------------>  Ear
>
>     Ear<------------------ Mic
>
>     Gnd ------------------- Gnd
>
>
> The problem I can foresee is "Block?" and such, how would you get the
> transmitting Beeb to send a chunk again? This is why serial ports are
> used for linking machines. Less smarts (no built in file handling) but
> more control over what happens "on the wire", plus the availability of
> handshaking signals.
>
Back in the day I definitely had a cable that allowed me to connect the 
cassette port on a BBC to the cassette port on an Electron.

I think the circuit for it came from one of the magazines - either Acorn 
User, Micro User or Electron User I expect.

It was a little more complicated than just a straight through lead - 
there were a few resistors involved too, but I'm afraid I can't even 
remember if they were in-line resistors or pull-down resistors.

I think most of the error handling didn't really matter, as (because the 
signal was being directly generated, rather than off tape) the error 
rate was pretty close to zero.

I don't remember it being something that was used much - I think the 
theory was to allow the BBC to effectively be a "cassette file server" 
to the Electron from its disc drive, but I don't think there was any 
software to allow it to be practical.

Regards

Michael