Defeated by a Tape Drive for the Data General Nova

In the previous episode, we got the Data General Nova 1210 up and running, but that’s just a CPU, memory and a serial card. Combine that with a terminal and we have basic I/O, but we still don’t have any mass storage. That’s where this Techtran Industries 8410 Datacassette drive comes in! But, the entire Data General project was going too smoothly, it was definitely time for something to trip us up, and this tape drive did just that! Come join us at VCF SoCal, East and SouthWest: https://www.vcfsw.org/ Also, check out Forgotten Machines and CommodoreZ: https://www.youtube.com/@ForgottenMachines https://commodorez.com/ If you want to support the channel please hop over to Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/usagielectric Also, we now have some epic shirts for sale! https://my-store-11554688.creator-spring.com Come join us on Discord: Discord: https://discord.gg/p7UsfHD Intro Music adapted from: Artist: The Runaway Five Title: The Shinra Shuffle https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01847 Thanks for watching! Chapters 0:00 We need mass storage 1:36 Why is this tape drive so weird? 3:49 A tape full of data 5:28 A wild Forgotten Machines appears! 9:20 Let’s bake a tape 11:13 A look at the insides 13:52 Some nasty capacitors 15:37 First power up 16:09 Time for it all to go sideways (CM) 18:48 Some signs of life 21:39 A bad switch 22:47 It’s so close, but not quite there 25:34 What’s the pattern here? 27:40 Kono san!