On my web site, I express my hopes to develop
software to help rescue
 old cassette data by digitizing the tapes.  I'm still hunting for
 specifications of the old formats. 
 OK, I'll build a web site this weekend that describes the Kansas-city
 and Tarbell standards.  Will this be useful?
  I just got a box full of Altair-era cassettes on
loan.  I plan to
 digitize them now and rescue the data later. 
 If you wanted to make some digitized fragments available, I'd gladly
 make some guesses as to the format.
 I think your approach (digitize now, analyze later) is 100% the right
 decision for old media.  The more oversampling you do, the better! 
 
An excellent idea.  Disk is now cheap, tape is now fading.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan:  How many years must some people exist,
                        before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd:  If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
                        they'll never be free.