Date   : Fri, 26 Nov 2010 23:47:16 +0000
From   : pete@... (Pete Turnbull)
Subject: Kansas City Standard

Michael Firth wrote:

> 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.

The resistors were almost certainly attenuators -- the output from a 
Beeb is a lot higher than is required for the input.  Such a cable -- or 
resistors on the PCB -- allowed a Beeb to be used as a server for a FIT. 
  I used to have a Beeb set up with an RFS ROM containing the FITest 
program, and downloaded it to the Beeb under test that way.  It was 
common to do a similar thing with a disc-equipped Beeb.  As Michael 
suggests, the error rate was virtually zero.

-- 
Pete                                           Peter Turnbull
                                               Network Manager
                                               University of York