International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1992 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The world of instrumentation data recording has traditionally been concerned with recorder performance in terms of bandwidth, data rate, tape speed and recording time, with the apparently unceasing trend to record more and more data. However, while this may remain a valid perspective for data acquisition, the increasing requirement to integrate equipment into computer based environments has resulted in the need for greater emphasis to be applied to such parameters as data control and interfacing when specifying digital data recording systems. This paper addresses these operational issues and describes the practical implementation of a computer friendly digital cassette recorder which provides a common platform for both high rate data acquisition and computer based data analysis.