On Wed, 15 Oct 2014, Josh Roybal wrote to All:   
      
    JR> I was wondering if anyone had some lore about using the original    
    JR> TRS-80 with the cassette recorder, I remember seeing it in action,    
    JR> but not much more. Say you were in a BASIC interpreter, did one    
    JR> open a data channel to the recorder, press the record or play    
    JR> button  depending on the I/O one wished to perform or what?    
      
   the only IO i remember with tape was BSAVE and BLOAD to save and load your   
   programs... but i do have a neuron trying to get my attention about some sort   
   of early calendar or address book thing that stored the data on tape... i   
   don't recall ever getting either to work properly, though...   
      
   there was no "data channel" as i recall... if you wanted to save data, you had   
   to have the tape already set for recording and the machine would start and   
   stop the drive as needed... when you needed to read data, you set the tape for   
   play and the machine would start and stop the drive as needed... there was no   
   automatic rewind, either... the computer simply used the "remote mic switch"   
   to start and stop the tape the same way you would when you were talking into   
   the mic during (eg) dictation...   
      
   you needed good stable power also... the slightest fluctuation would farkle   
   your data reading and writing on tape... i still have, around here somewhere,   
   a star trek game from a mainframe system... it is a basic source code printout   
   on greenbar paper... i typed that game in many times way back when... i never   
   was able to get a good save to or load from tape... i suspect due to the   
   fridge or AC switching on or off... i tried many many times and just never was   
   successful... i've kept that printout in the hopes of getting it entered and   
   saved some time... i did play the game a few times but never really got   
   anywhere in it...   
      
   i hope to find the print out and do something with it but who knows if that'll   
   ever happen... i can only hope that the dot matrix print is still legible...   
   the folded stack of output was about an inch thick...   
      
   )\/(ark   
      
    * Origin:  (1:3634/12)