READERS' FEEDBACK

The Editors and Readers of COMPUTE!

What's A Cassette Buffer?

What is the cassette buffer used for?

James Kenny

A buffer is a temporary storage area. The cassette buffer is a special set of Random Access Memory (RAM) locations where the computer's operating system places information which is to be transferred to or from a cassette storage device. Because the operating system only uses this buffer during tape operations, it is available for other uses between tape operations.

If you switch from tape to disk storage, the cassette buffer no longer has a special function, and memory in the buffer can be used the same as other RAM locations.

In Commodore computers the cassette buffer is in locations 828–1019. In Atari, locations 1021–1151 are used.