Da Da Da DAT

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I was kindly given a Sony DAT Walkman a few months ago and started playing with it last week. There's a minor issue with it that I will sort out, but it is a solid piece of kit and still working after 30 years. DAT really was the pinnacle of recording technology with full uncompressed 48kHz audio at your fingertips.

Now DAT, like MiniDisc, generally has to record and play back at normal speed, so there is no special digital connection for a computer. The Walkman had a proprietary 7-pin digital connection for linking to other digital gear. A quick bit of research revealed that the connectors are as rare as unicorn poo and I couldn't even find a pinout. What I did have though were some optical audio cables and connectors cannibalized from obsolete stereo equipment.


I recorded some random audio to a DAT tape and played it back while using the oscilloscope to test the pins in the digital connector. I was able to find a suitable waveform with a 3.3-volt amplitude which looked right, and using a 220-ohm resistor for current limiting, hooked up an LED optical socket.



Jackpot, it worked and I got a high-quality audio output from my Juice sound bar via its optical input.


What next? Oh, a bit of dubbing via the optical jack in the side of a Sony portable MiniDisc recorder.

MiniDisc is the format of champions, but DAT is the format used in Asgard!

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