Quarantine seems to give generous time for experimentation. Like this computer engineer who ran MS-DOS from a vinyl record.
If you're old enough you'll no doubt remember the days when you loaded programs onto the Spectrum from a tape recorder. THE sound από τις απαρχές των υπολογιστών ήταν ένα μέσο μετάδοσης data.
The Slovak mechanical Jozef Bogin in the middle of quarantine probably ended it. So what he did was boot into MS-DOS, but instead of using a traditional tape, he decided to try a vinyl record.
In the video below you will see all the steps in detail, but we must warn you that it is recommended to turn down the volume of your speakers, as the sounds that are heard are piercing. 80s machine users certainly know.
As you can see, MS-DOS does not boot on a modern computer, but on a prototype IBM 5150. The audio loading process is really surprisingly fast as MS-DOS 6.22 is rather small in volume.
According to Bogin's website there is a small ROM boot loader on the computer that handles the computer's built-in "cassette interface" and invokes the BIOS if all other boot options fail, e.g. floppy disk and hard disk.
The turntable spins and reads an analog record of a small RAM unit, which is 64K in size. Contains a FreeDOS kernel, modified by Bogin to reduce bulk, a micro variant of COMMAND.COM, and an updated version of INTERLNK, which allows porting files via printer cable, modified to run in FreeDOS. The bootloader reads the disk image from the audio recording via the tape modem, loads it into memory and boots the system to it.
While this may sound like rocket science to some, it is actually an experiment that could keep you busy in quarantine. Of course, there is no benefit other than having fun with the software and the satisfaction of getting it done.
If you want to try it at home, Bogin gives all the instructions through his website. Good luck!!
