Check out this great article in Ars about a Finnish radio station that experimented with sending BASIC cassette programs over radio in the 80’s:
With his VIC-20, Tunkelo taught himself BASIC, then studied assembly language. He wrote programs that ran “straight to the metal,” as he put it, but also came from the heart. One included graphics that celebrated his sister’s high school graduation. But the young innovator felt isolated. “Computers were not as popular as they are now,” Tunkelo said, and few schools had one.
Then came a remarkable radio show that changed the landscape for him and a generation of Finnish technology lovers—a show that literally broadcast code over the airwaves.
…
This work-in-progress was produced by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (known by its Finnish abbreviation, YLE), Finland’s public media system. Educator Kai R. Lehtonen, who produced educational radio shows for Finnish schools, supervised the new show—although he disliked using the “e-word.”
…
“If you wrote a piece of code in a computer, saved it on a [Commodore] C-cassette, took that cassette out and listened to it with an ordinary cassette recorder you heard sounds,” Lehtonen explained. “But as sounds could be copied to another tape and as sounds could be transmitted over radio, then why should it not be possible to receive even these sounds of the code, record them with a C-cassette recorder and have the recorded sounds do their trick in another computer?” In other words—why couldn’t you distribute code by simply playing it over the radio while enthusiasts taped it for later use?
And finally, this charming quote:
Some listeners cared nothing for the code—they simply enjoyed the sound of the buzz. “I once had a letter from a 70 year old lady who wrote she did not understand anything of computing but she liked to listen to how different makes of computers buzzed in their personal (!) ways,” Lehtonen recalled.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
I had both the Vic 20 and this cassette recorder when I was a kid. That cassette player taught me that not all storage media are ‘equal’. i lost more programs with that thing until I bought some nicer tape.
In Germany we had a TV-series called WDR Computerclub, it was broadcasted from 1981 to 2003. Till 1986 they used to send „Hard-Bit-Rocks“, audio with basic code inside which could be recorded with a cassette recorder and than read by the Datassette, at the end of the program. After that the code was sent as black and white lines in the upper part of the picture. But you needed a special videodat modem to decode this. With this system they could use the whole 30 to 45 minutes of the show to send data 50 bytes/sec, about 90 KB at the beginning and later the streamed with 10 kbit/sec. In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJzitTzYrgo you can see the black and white lines 😉
I don’t remember any radio stations transmitting VIC-20 code, but I’m pretty sure there was one that experimented with sending out CP/M code using the “Kansas City Standard” cassette format.
ISTR that this was done in the US, as well. Memory says it was a radio station in Phoenix, AZ, but my memory could be tricking me.
I had both the Vic 20 and this cassette recorder when I was a kid. That cassette player taught me that not all storage media are ‘equal’. i lost more programs with that thing until I bought some nicer tape.
In Germany we had a TV-series called WDR Computerclub, it was broadcasted from 1981 to 2003. Till 1986 they used to send „Hard-Bit-Rocks“, audio with basic code inside which could be recorded with a cassette recorder and than read by the Datassette, at the end of the program. After that the code was sent as black and white lines in the upper part of the picture. But you needed a special videodat modem to decode this. With this system they could use the whole 30 to 45 minutes of the show to send data 50 bytes/sec, about 90 KB at the beginning and later the streamed with 10 kbit/sec. In this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJzitTzYrgo you can see the black and white lines 😉
Regards,
Henning.
TDK or Technics was a good brand that worked for a while. Sony worked as well.
I don’t remember any radio stations transmitting VIC-20 code, but I’m pretty sure there was one that experimented with sending out CP/M code using the “Kansas City Standard” cassette format.