Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for enabling the backup of very large volumes of data from a computer hard drive to a digital tape contained in a DV camcorder and for restoring the same data from the tape to the hard drive. The process uses the IEEE-1394 standard referred to commercially as FireWire. A backup/restore software component is installed on the host computer (i.e., the computer having the hard drive to be backed up) and enables the computer to communicate over a FireWire cable with a DV camcorder. Through this process, entire hard drives containing in the order of 30-40 gigabytes of data, can be backed up to a low number of inexpensive digital tapes. In many cases, where the total amount of data is less than 20 gigabytes, only one mini DV tape, for example, may be needed. The backup is performed quickly by virtue of the extremely high-speed data transmission capabilities of FireWire and the data on the tape can be randomly accessed.

Abstract: A sourceless orientation sensor having an azimuthal sensor which determines the azimuthal orientation relative to a planetary magnetic field, and a tilt sensor which determines the direction and magnitude of the displacement from vertical using the planetary gravitational field. The tilt sensor includes a transparent gas and a transparent viscous fluid in a spherical shell, a light emitting diode (LED) mounted at the top of the shell, and four photodetectors mounted at the bottom of the shell. As the tilt sensor is rotated the path of the light cone emanating from the LED and refracting at the gas/fluid interface is altered, thereby altering the intensity of light incident on the photodetectors. The magnitude of the light incident on the photodetectors is processed to provide the tilt angles. A thin transparent disk floats at the gas/fluid interface to damp surface waves caused by reorientation of the device.