From: ftegerer@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Frohwalt Egerer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction
Subject: Re: VCR as a tape drive
Date: 12 Nov 92 18:16:47 GMT
Organization: Student Pool, CSD, University of Erlangen, Germany

vanz@tragula.equinox.gen.nz (Martin Nieuwelaar) writes:

>In article <Bx7Ip9.Lu8@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> thwang@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Tommy Hwang) writes:
>>In article <SnVVr*-v5@lbcmbx.in-berlin.de> leguan@lbcmbx.in-berlin.de (Andreas Geist) writes:
>>>In article <1992Oct29.133438.22685@bmerh85.bnr.ca>, Cyrus Sanii writes:
>>>> company's name was something like rossmueller.  The cost was $150
>>>> and it included a VCR tape with about 100Meg of Fred Fish software.
>>>
>>>Rossmoeller Handshake GmbH
>>>Neuer Markt 21
>>>5309 Meckenheim
>>>
>>>Tel. +49 2225 2061-62
>>>Fax. +49 2225 10193
>>>
>>
>>     I would have emailed, but I think people might want to know this...
>>
>>     Is the VCR in PAL or NTSC?  I know that the format of the VCR does
>>not matter for Amigas, but what if we want to watch video tape too?
>>Thanks in advance...

>Also, in what way does it connect to the Amiga?  Does it use a Zorro II
>slot, the parallel port, serial???  By the sounds of it, it isn't an
>intelligent SCSI device, so that makes me wonder what the software is
>like.  Will it run under Workbench 2.0?  Will it work with an '030?
>Will it multi-task?  From what European software I've seen, these
>last three are important questions.

>All going well I could really use one of these.  Video tapes are so
>cheap you could keep a number of backup copies, which you probably would
>want to do for a device with no ability to verify.


DON'T BUY IT!   DON"T BUY IT!  DONT'T BUY IT! 

I did and I regret it. The cable connects your Amigas monchrome video
output to the VCR and the VCR's output to Amiga's serial port.
The hardware is small enough to fit into the plug for the serial port.

The function of this thing is quite simple: When backing up the program
draws the data on the screen: Lots of little white horzontal lines,
one line per bit. This 'picture' can easyly be recorded on a VCR.

Reading the backup is simple to: The video output of the VCR is sent
through a simple filter, which eliminates all the sync signal. The
remainig high and low signals (remember: white an black lines) are
fed into the serial port.

As the backup software needs the screen to record the data, you
definitely can't work with your machine while backing up the hard
disk. But it even gets worse: The software (Nice, colorful german
hacker-kid program) crashes the machine. Sometimes just after
starting it, sometimes just after it has backed up 80% of your
disk. When I reported this bug to Rossmoeller they told me:
"You probably have a faulty disk. Must have happen while copying
it". The new disk I received two weeks later was an 100%
duplicate of the first one. I phoned them again, and got the
same answer again. They didn't care the program was buggy, not
the disk.

Description of manual and hardware quality:

<CENSORED, Too harsh for the net>

Froh

---
Email:     ftegerer@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction