Comment by smokel
3 years ago
Heh, I remember playing .mp3 files directly from QIC-80 tapes, somewhere around 1996. One tape could store about 120 MB, which is equal to about two compact discs' worth of audio. The noise of the tape drive was slightly annoying, though. And it made me appreciate what the 't' in 'tar' stands for.
Did you mean 1200 MB? That would make sense wrt. 2x CD capacity.
No, it was really only 120 MB. I was referring to the length of an audio compact disc, not the capacity of a CD-ROM. At 128 kbps, you'd get about 2 hours of play time.
Of course it didn't really make sense to use digital tapes for that use case, even back then. It was just for fun, and the article sparked some nostalgic joy, which felt worth sharing :)
They reference MP3, and a CD ripped down to MP3 probably fits in the 50-100MB envelope for size. It has been a very long time since I last ripped an album, but that size jives with my memory.