write data to vhs or cassette from computer?

[Rototiller]

My dad has been keeping data for his job for decades and gets a new computer system every few years. this is great in terms of hand me downs, but not great in storage space. He's got a room stacked high with cardboard boxes, one of which contains of old vhs tapes with stuff on it. (datasette for the C64p, anyone?)
After graciously donating them along with a vhs player and some computer cassette tapes, i realized that they're essentially useless if i can't open up something and make them do something unordinary. to sum it up and for those who thought tl;dr: is it possible for me to hack a vhs player or cassette player, connect it to my lappy, and store stuff on them?

[bicostp]

So, do you want to store modern files on them, or use them for C64 or TI 99/4a emulators or what?

Modern files? That's a good one. There's a reason data tapes are reserved for mass backups, because they're a huge pain in the butt to use. Remember, the home computers from ye olde days stored the equivelant to text files. You'd be better off with flash drives, a spare hard drive, or some DVD-Rs. Data tape is only useful as backup / cold storage because it has no random access, and loading and unloading files from them is bloody slow. Sure you can get a 72 gig tape for $13, but it needs a $300 tape drive, and for $90 you can get a hard drive that holds at least 10x more.

Old computer files? Hook your tape deck to your PC's line input and dump the tapes to uncompressed WAV files. Or just keep the tapes and a player around.

[MegatronUK]

Before Zip drives, and before cheap CD-R/DVD-R drives and the current multi-gigabyte flash drives became available for the PC (I'm talking mid to late 90's here) there actually was an interface card available that allowed you to store a couple of gigabytes on a standard VHS tape. Don't think it was ever too successful though.

[Rototiller]

So, do you want to store modern files on them, or use them for C64 or TI 99/4a emulators or what?

Modern files? That's a good one. There's a reason data tapes are reserved for mass backups, because they're a huge pain in the butt to use. Remember, the home computers from ye olde days stored the equivelant to text files. You'd be better off with flash drives, a spare hard drive, or some DVD-Rs. Data tape is only useful as backup / cold storage because it has no random access, and loading and unloading files from them is bloody slow. Sure you can get a 72 gig tape for $13, but it needs a $300 tape drive, and for $90 you can get a hard drive that holds at least 10x more.

Old computer files? Hook your tape deck to your PC's line input and dump the tapes to uncompressed WAV files. Or just keep the tapes and a player around.

the line input method is what i'm looking for, but in reverse.
I popped a tape into both my vhs player and stereo, and came to the conclusion that my dad is the most miserly penny pinching human in existence(in a good way, of course ). The video tape had him showing a picture of a document and transition to another page in ~30seconds, and the cassettes are someone (a secretary?) reading key info. Not what i was expecting.
Mmmoving on, I'm interested in performing this feat purely because "it's there." i have a 30 gig HDD, but proof of concept is what i'm looking for, not storage. Granted, it's not nearly as bad as having stuff on a massive spinning reel like every cold war supercomputer.

[MegatronUK]

Found some more info for you:
http://g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/24 ... er-32.html

Someone even took the time to write Linux drivers in the early part of this decade for it:
http://linbacker.sourceforge.net