[geeks] Sony DAT Walkman and DAT Tapes

[Kevin R. Marshall]

I now use an Indigo 1 (purple tower) with the built in DAT to play all my old DAT tapes.  Once of these days i'll use to to dump everything to WAV, but for now i enjoy using the Indigo in this way (i love that damn machine).

I have to do this because my Sony DAT Walkman was/is an unreliable POS.  Been to service three times.

Aaron, i've got the cable you need.  Shoot me an email off list and i'll arrange to send it out to you.  I've never used because i never had anything to hook the optical end up to.  That and, at least on my DAT, you would have to deal with SCMS copy protection (the very early 90s version of DRM).

BTW: i would be EXTREMELY surprised to find this cable at Target.  It looks, like everything else Sony has ever made, to be proprietary.  Small square end with a right angled "key" piece with the other end terminating in an optical connections.

/KRM


On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:03:19 -0800
"Sheldon T. Hall" <shel at tandem.artell.net> wrote:

> Quoth Aaron Finley ...
> 
> > I bought a Sony DAT Walkman, TCD-D3, at Goodwill. It came with a
> > battery, carrying case, and power adapter, but unfortunately no
> > digital cable.
> > 
> > I'd like to play around with it, but I don't know where to start. The
> > battery is dead, but it's a simple connection, could easy be replaced
> > with 4 2500mah rechargable AAs.
> > 
> > I cannot find much information at all about the unit. I don't know
> > where to go for a service manual -- I need the pinouts for the digital
> > cable (sells for $60-70 just for the cable on eBay) so I could make my
> > own.
> > 
> > Finally, does anyone have any DAT tapes, DT-120 or otherwise? I'm
> > envisioning myself using this in my backpack as a replacement for my
> > iPod, as I'd imagine the sound quality is quite a bit better if I were
> > to rip CDs directly to it digitally.
> 
> SGI machines of the 90s often had DAT/DDS drives that did DAT audio through
> the SCSI bus, as well as software that supported this.  I had one in an
> Indigo2, but never used it.  As far as I know, DDS and DAT tapes are the
> same.  I know people in the music business who still use DAT tapes for
> moving various music stuff around, using the standard "station wagon full of
> tapes" bandwidth paradigm.
> 
> I don't know anything about the Sony cable, but finding an Indigo2 with a
> DAT drive might be a good way to make DAT tapes.  I may still have some DDS
> tapes, though, if you don't get a better offer.
> 
> -Shel
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> 


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