Reminds me of when I was a kid, and I had a Tandy CoCo and a tape recorder deck that was the only way to save any programs you wrote on it. I tried playing the data tape a few times.
Yes! I used to have an Amstrad CPC 464 with a tape deck and it would play the tape through its internal speaker as it was loading a program into memory. The amount of time sat around watching screens like this: