I'd be interested in access to real drives capable of reading real tapes, to get archival data off my tapes. And, DAT format.

If the emulation aides in FPGA or small device coding to make modern interface bindings to older devices and so drops the entry cost to get an older SCSI or firewire drive working, I'd be delighted.

If this is emulation of the command set aimed at "driving" a software emulated tape drive, It's for another purpose. It won't help me recover old media.

(cheapskate: there are competent, expensive companies which specialise in this kind of data recovery. The problem is cost/benefit, not actual capability at any price)

tgsovlerkhgsel1hon HN

Depending on how old/exotic the format is, universities or libraries might have drives that you might be able to access (retrocomputing groups too, of course, but those aren't as common).

sixothree2hon HN

Doesn't this bring us closer to that?

ggm2hon HN

That's certainly the hope!

GalaxyNova4hon HN

I think LLMs go against the retrocomputing ethos

a1o3hon HN

It removes the fun of figuring things out by yourself and the learning how to learn things. Also the lower complexity these systems usually have vs what we use today.

I don’t see the appeal either, but perhaps the person using takes something else from their retrocomputing use.

Daishiman3hon HN

Some of us care a bit more about having historically relevant content be accessible. I care very little about the reverse engineering aspect.

a1o2hon HN

Yes, I understand, as perhaps someone who has a museum and has to keep things working with very little resources, and I imagine there are many more reasons. Different people may have the same hobbies on the surface for different reasons and so on.

hagbard_c3hon HN

Then so do emulators, flash drives instead of 1541's, etc. Nobody forces you to use generative models to get older hardware to do its thing, you're still free to try to get the actual hardware to run, free to build interfaces to get QIC drives connected to whatever you want them connected to, etc.

LastTrain1hon HN

Are you trying to prove their personal preference wrong?

parl_match19mon HN

Personally, I just think that LLMs are an artificial line to draw based on current personal preference.

I'm not an AI maximalist, but I really can't see the issue with using it to preserve this hardware (especially into RTL for FPGA), if it's highly accurate.

These machines are dying in real time, and having cycle and operationally accurate emulation options is more important than the bad taste the Glorified Copymachine leaves in my mouth, to be honest.

Honestly, by quantity alone, I've seen more impressive and quality reverse-engineering and documentation work of these platforms done in the last year than i have in the last 20.

sixothree2hon HN

There are many ways you could make a principled argument in that direction and I would agree in lots of cases. But retro-computing is a varied field with lots of different interests. Many of those are simply enthusiast curiosity.

So I will say this. Back in the days of 80x25 terminals, I was adamant that larger screens made you more productive. I don't remember anything but outright derision and skepticism in this regard. The saying "the monitor is the computer" meant a lot to me. The limitations of the day were defining but as developers we always wanted the best technology and tools available.

ClaudeSucks313mon HN

Nobody uses Anslopic, you aren’t fooling anyone.

You guys over-advertise Claude. It’s nothing more than a “me too” AI clone of the other oversold overhyped crap.

Do better

Claude × retrocomputing: emulating a QIC-117 tape drive

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