Questions tagged [cassette-tape]
For questions regarding data storage on magnetic tape in a cassette tape format.
76
questions
8
votes
3
answers
377
views
What is the correct power supply for this SD card/cassette reader for Sinclair computers?
I bought this some time ago, but I did not keep the power supply with it. It does not have any product name on it, and I can't locate the correct information. What is the correct power supply and what ...
- 283
14
votes
3
answers
2k
views
Were cassette tapes designed to be adjusted by pencils? [closed]
Back in my ZX Spectrum days, it was normal to do manual fine adjustment of a cassette tape position using a hexagonal pencil or a cheap Biro pen. It's almost like the hub is designed to be twiddled ...
- 251
27
votes
3
answers
3k
views
How did ZX Spectrum games loaders prevent the use of MERGE?
The MERGE command could be used on early games to load the first BASIC program block without it auto-running, but in later games, the use of MERGE caused the machine to hang. How was this achieved?
- 273
5
votes
1
answer
387
views
How do I change the cassette tape data (baud) rate on MSX machines?
The MSX Resource Center Wiki mentions that MSX machines can save and load at either 1200 or 2400 bps or baud. But it doesn't mention how to change this setting.
So how do I change that rate? Is it ...
- 24.6k
25
votes
8
answers
7k
views
What did it sound like when you played a cassette tape with programs on it?
As a medium of storing large data, cassette tapes were used just like the following:
I wonder what it would sound like if one put the tape in a cassette player and played it as if it were a regular ...
- 369
3
votes
1
answer
392
views
Interpreting TRS-80 model 1/2 tape cassette audio
I got interested in writing my own code to parse tape cassette formats for a few platforms. I did OK with both Spectrum and Apple 2 tapes based on info I could find online.
Speccy and Apple 2 seem to ...
- 6,333
2
votes
2
answers
254
views
How do I save data from a program with CC65 [closed]
I wanted to have a calculator program be able to save a set of answers on a floppy disk or tape but I have no idea what I should do.
I am aware that the "cbm.h" library can be used to load ...
- 33
3
votes
0
answers
179
views
Can MAME save to cassette tape formats other than WAV? [closed]
MAME seems to be extremely unintuitive to use and extremely poorly documented. But it supports a ton of machines, some of which I haven't found other emulators for, so I've been persevering with it ...
- 6,333
7
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Can you load machine code programs for cassette tape on a TRS-80 model 1 level 1?
I'm trying out TRS-80 model I/III emulators. I know there was Level 1 and Level 2. I think this refers both to the ROM and the BASIC on the model I. Level 2 ROMs were a common upgrade to the model I ...
- 6,333
10
votes
2
answers
1k
views
What tape format did the Nintendo Famicom Data Recorder use?
I just learned from a YouTube video that in Japan there was an add-on for the original Nintendo Famicom console that included a keyboard (HVC-007) and compact cassette tape player & recorder (HVC-...
- 6,333
26
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Which software was the first to use copy protection?
While researching early magnetic storage around 1980, I've come to ponder if we know of the first piece of software on removable media that employed copy protection?
The Wikipedia article mentions ...
- 633
20
votes
6
answers
3k
views
Does lossy audio compression damage datasette data?
I grew up with the C64 and had software on cassette tapes. These days, you can find "backups" of this software all over the internet, even in mp3 format (by recording the audio signal with a ...
- 615
9
votes
1
answer
340
views
What is the effect of direct exposure of the magnetic disk of a floppy to ultraviolet (UV) light?
I was thinking of the mold issue of floppies and UV light (UV-C) came to mind. As ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation and floppies use a magnetic disk for storage and I vaguely ...
- 1,662
5
votes
3
answers
556
views
Definitive list of music bands/groups that included computer programs on their analogue audio music physical media releases (LPs, singles)
Is there a definitive list of music pop/rock bands/groups that included computer programs as part of their physical analogue audio music releases? (vinyl LPs, EPs, singles) etc?
For this to be ...
- 759
18
votes
3
answers
5k
views
How did the Commodore 64 show a picture while reading cassette?
I was watching this video just now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0YmJluYb6Q&ab_channel=NostalgiaNerd on things that early home computers displayed on the screen while reading cassettes, and ...
- 58.4k
5
votes
1
answer
323
views
Audio cassettes on TI-99
One of the features of the Atari machines was that the left audio channel on the cassette was connected through to the television speaker. This was used to produce things like "Conversational ...
- 19.5k
9
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Why Kansas City Standard (KCS/CUTS) differs from Bell 103/202/212 modem protocol?
While both were data transfer protocols serving streams at 300/1200 baud, why did they choose different frequencies, marks, modulation, and anything else?
I understand that they serve different ...
- 3,732
13
votes
5
answers
2k
views
Compression techniques used in old ZX Spectrum tapes
Many ZX Spectrum games* (and demos) would improve loading time and save space in the tape using rudimentary compression. During decompression, the game would display "decrunching" for ...
- 1,999
5
votes
1
answer
407
views
How did games written for tape-based BBC micro, get officially and unofficially ported to disk, bearing in mind extra workspace needed by DFS ROM?
If I recall, PAGE = &E00 for a BBC Model B system with cassette tape based storage.
On installation of Acorn DFS ROM (with 8271 Floppy disc controller), the ROM allocated more memory, increasing ...
- 759
13
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Did the Apple 1 cassette interface card have its own ROM?
According to this page, the Apple 1 monitor program was located in addresses $F000-$FFFF, a ROM program to use the optional cassette interface card was at addresses $C100-$C1FF, and the peripheral ...
- 15.8k
4
votes
1
answer
316
views
Identifying and recovering programs from tapes
A couple of days ago, I was given some old tapes with programs written on them. However, I am having some trouble with them.
I do not know what computer they were programed for. After recognising the ...
- 141
12
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Did the Commodore datasette interface provide greater reliability?
Cassette, being cheaper than a floppy disk drive, was a popular storage medium in the 8-bit era. Some computers such as the Sinclair Spectrum, just provided a port to plug in an existing cassette deck....
- 58.4k
4
votes
1
answer
317
views
From what errors could Commodore's tape loader recover
The Commodore PET/VIC-20/C64 tape routines write out the leader for each file twice, and then write the data twice. While it would seem that this should allow data to be loaded more reliably, ...
- 34.7k
34
votes
17
answers
16k
views
Did computer games for Commodore 64 really take "25 minutes" to load "if everything went alright"?
In the Swedish-language song "Nostalgi" by Markoolio from 2003, some of the lyrics go:
My first computer had 64 kB
you surfed on the water, and that's that
The computer games were loaded ...
- 349
5
votes
1
answer
290
views
Upping the speed of the VIC-20 tape drive: aftermarket hardware for the expansion port with "rabbit" in the name?
EDIT: I realize from reading the comments that I was bit loose in my use of the word "speed" as a property of the tape drive. What I had in mind was the speed of the data transfer, not the ...
- 53
4
votes
3
answers
658
views
ZX Spectrum red stripes during loading
When we load any game on ZX Spectrum from cassette player...
Should red stripes move smoothly for better result or they should be static for perfect result?
What is the theory?
- 41
3
votes
1
answer
502
views
Loading a Tandy CoCo or a Dragon 32 machine code program from cassette with multiple "name blocks"
For the Dragon 32 and the TRS-80 Color Computer I've found two documents describing how loading from cassette tape works:Dragon 32 doc, CoCo doc.
They both say that a standard program consists of a ...
- 6,333
5
votes
1
answer
145
views
Length of leader block in Coco and Dragon cassette tape header and .cas tape image file format
I've been looking into the format of .cas files for Tandy Color Computer and Dragon32 emulators. These files are almost exactly byte for byte representations of the data/audio/bit pattern of the ...
- 6,333
67
votes
1
answer
5k
views
How do I extract the program from the Radiohead "Nude" tribute by James Houston?
One of my favorite videos ever is a tribute to Radiohead "Nude" by James Houston. I have never seen the program in the video available to download, so I've just made an attempt to extract it ...
9
votes
1
answer
865
views
Teddy Ruxpin Animation Coding "Language"?
I've recently become interested in the original Teddy Ruxpin that operated by playing 8-track cassette tapes. The 8 channels on the tape were used in a creative way to ensure that Teddy's animation ...
- 191
4
votes
1
answer
255
views
Checking Old Tapes
How do I check old ZX spectrum cassettes work - the tapes are after all quite old?
I am fairly computer savvy (my life is a continual strand from that Speccy to this here Thinkpad - and many stations ...
- 49
3
votes
0
answers
155
views
Commodore tape drive performance specs
Over the years during which Commodore sold tape drives, there have been a few different versions of the drive with different analog electronics. I'm interested in experimenting with "turbo" tape ...
- 34.7k
8
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Cassette formats using ECC?
The Commodore systems famously wrote everything to the Datasette twice as a form of error correction. Most other formats I've looked at - Atari, CUTS and CoCo - lack any form of correction.
Is anyone ...
- 19.5k
7
votes
3
answers
441
views
What home computers offered an adjustable tape baud rate
By the title I mean a built in option rather than a software or hardware add on and saving / loading to regular domestic audio cassette tape.
We should exclude all third party type loaders from this ...
- 584
2
votes
1
answer
216
views
Vic-20 tape I/O dependence on CPU speed?
As I understand it, the Vic-20 reads and writes the cassette deck by the low-tech expedient of just using the CPU to bit-bang a one-bit serial line. This presumably means that for a given code ...
- 58.4k
4
votes
1
answer
528
views
Did BBC Micro and Electron games use custom tape loaders?
Back in the day, I owned a Commodore 64, and I noticed that essentially all games on tape, provided their own code for reading the tape, instead of using the code provided in ROM. This had two ...
- 58.4k
18
votes
4
answers
6k
views
Why did some Spectrum games need LOAD "" CODE?
Most ZX Spectrum games were loaded from tape, and the traditional way of starting the loading process (at least in the 48K era) was to type
LOAD ""
and then start the tape. This would normally load ...
- 1,871
6
votes
0
answers
250
views
PET LOAD command and the < key
I remember reading (probably in some issue of the newsletter of the PET Benelux Exchange (PBE)) about a strange effect during tape loading of a PET program. Back in the day, I tried it and it worked. ...
17
votes
7
answers
5k
views
What should be the waveform for ZX Spectrum tapes?
I am digitizing about 40 tapes with programs for the ZX Spectrum.
I am somewhat puzzled by the waveform after digitization.
The signal of most cassettes is meander-shaped.
One of the cassettes can ...
- 361
17
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How to decode an audio file which contains an MSX BASIC program? [closed]
I have an audio file in WAV format, which supposedly comes from a cassette sound file. Moreover, it contains a BASIC program, but I don't know how to decode it. I have tried to convert the wav file to ...
- 271
6
votes
1
answer
298
views
Exact tape recording format for SVI-318/328 computers
I'm looking for the exact tape data format of old SVI-318/328 computers, some kind of whitepapers explaining it.
I've obtained several information from a real tape, but I don't known if the infered ...
- 533
6
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Are there standard DIN pinouts for cassette and video ports on early Japanese 8-bit computers?
I have several different Japanese 8-bit computers, and they use similar DIN connectors for video and cassette I/O:
Composite video: 180° 5-pin DIN: Fujitsu FM-7, NEC PC-8001mkII
Color TTL (digital) ...
- 24.6k
20
votes
6
answers
12k
views
How much data could a home computer store on an audio cassette?
The use of audio cassettes for storing data for home computers was a great example of repurposing an existing invention. Cassettes were sold in a variety of capacities, and labelled with their audio ...
- 8,036
8
votes
1
answer
990
views
How did the C64 interface tape drives?
How did the C64 interface tape drives?
I'm aware that the external interface was basically a audio input - but how was this audio converted into digital data, and how was it loaded into RAM and ...
- 298
5
votes
2
answers
4k
views
When and why did tape recorders acquire a "remote" input?
This entirely-typical-of-the-era (other than mysteriously missing its EAR socket) tape recorder from 1984 was the "standard" type of tape deck for home computer data storage in the UK.
They could be ...
- 323
18
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Cassette tape storage formats
I just came across this excellent article on cassette tape storage formats.
One thing confuses me though... in the "all digital" examples, like Figure 1C, what exactly ends up on the tape? That is, ...
- 19.5k
3
votes
2
answers
476
views
How significant/pioneering was the TV Typewriter?
How significant and pioneering was the TV Typewriter,
in light of things like
calculators with CRT's from 1964 and various other things?
I recently read that the TV Typewriter established the standard ...
- 125
14
votes
8
answers
3k
views
Copying tapes "back in the day"
Back when I had a ZX Spectrum 48K, I had a friend that had a 128K and we would swap games for the weekend from time to time.
We did try and make duplicates of the tapes (yes, I know, but we were ten ...
- 291
4
votes
4
answers
512
views
Cassettes that used stereo?
One of the tricks many of the early machines allowed was the ability to record an audio track on one of the tape channels, and then turn it on or off using the deck control. I believe the Ataris may ...
- 19.5k
7
votes
1
answer
936
views
What's the difference between Kansas City tape standard and CUTS?
A number of a different computer systems use a tape encoding based on either the Kansas City or CUTS standards. There's a very brief overview on Wikipedia, but it's not clear what the difference ...
- 12.8k