Re: Did Commodore cheat with the quad density floppies?

Den Thu, 3 Jan 2019 15:59:58 +0100 skrev Francesco Messineo
<francesco.messineo@gmail.com>:
> > Back when Type II was established, the type II tapes had an extra
> > notch next to the erase control tab and most recorders had a sensor
> > that detected the type that way. Wasn't something like this also
> > added for type IV as well?
> 
> yes, every kind of compact cassette had different holes, but recorders
> were not forced to auto-detect, my recorder in the '80s supported type
> I and IV but had no autodetect, I needed to "inform" it via a switch
> on what kind of cassette I had put in it.
> The high end ones I'm sure had autodetect.

Well, type III (FeCr) never had any autodetect holes, unfortunitely.
Therefore there were some cassette units which had a selector with
positions for type III and auto (usually labeled I/II). Metal / type IV
had another notch closer to the center.

The early chrome enabled Philips made cassette decks from the early
70's did auto detect the type and indicated the type with different
colors on a bit of plastic that moved behind a transparent window.

BASF did the most stupid thing, they made cassette recorders that were
only made for using Chrome / type II tapes.

Btw, the better cassette decks could be calibrated by the user for each
different tape brand/model. Sometimes automatic (like for example
Yamaha KX-670) and sometimes manually (and then in some cases only the
bias level like Yamaha KX-1200 or only the signal level like Akai
GXC-760D).

My impression is that those brands that sold best to customers who
wanted many buttons and knobs had manual tape selection while those who
sold to customers who didn't care about all tech details did
autodetect. At some point in time the auto detect took over though,
probably because it was easier to make it a part of the same cassette
mechanism base used for many decks while producing nice looking buttons
on the front panel cost money.



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