You will need a soundcard which can deal with DAT - I use an M-Audiophile USB which is an external soundcard. You can get internal ones too which are a little cheaper. Or, you may already have an S/PDIF input in your PC. If so, then use that (you'll need an S/PDIF cable for your DAT>PC). As for the cassette transfers - I hope someone else will help with what you need to playback the tapes.
If possible, avoid MP3. Your recordings will be much more appreciated on sites like this if you keep them as WAV>FLAC files with no encoding to MP3.
You will also need something to catch the digital signal on your PC itself. Again, there are options available to you depending on whether or not you want to spend any money. I personally use Audacity which is free. You can catch the audio with this and do some mastering too, if you want to. You should also get a CDWave which you use to split a bit WAV file into individual tracks. Again, this is free.
You might want to check out a website called
www.taperssection.com There is lots of information there.
You might also want to check DAT heads.
Do you intend to get back into trading DATs?
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