Converting .PRG .TAP, and .64 files to tape.

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16KVIC20
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Converting .PRG .TAP, and .64 files to tape.

Post by 16KVIC20 »

I have mentioned this previously, but I have just had another go at converting .PRG, .TAP, and .64 files to a sound file which plays and I simultaneously record to tape.

The program I use is WINTZX, which is available on the world of Spectrum Forums.

I use a 3.5mm jack lead from my multimedia speaker earphone sockets to the mic socket on my tape deck.

On opening WINTZX select Full Verbose on the right, the other highlighted option also remains green, leave it like that. Click on the icon of a file, this will allow you to browse your collection of files, find the one you want, and double click. It will then appear in the black box of WINTZX. Make sure all connections are in place. Click the play button on WINTZX. It will then ask you a few things, select kernel, press record or record and play on your tape deck, then click the tick on WINTZX.

When the green lights go out on the 2 bottom left hand buttons, it's done.

I have had some success doing this.

Abductor, Metagalactic Llamas, Battlefield, Berzerk MMX, and Arcadia have all worked.

I also tried the skiing program from Computronic (which I converted to .d64) it loaded, but reported a data error. Skyhawk did the same thing. Moons of Jupiter and Myriad didn't work either.

I'm not sure why they didn't work, but given my success rate seems to be about 50%, I'll have a go at some more soon.


Has anybody else tried this?
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Post by e5frog »

Have you tried converting to mp3 and load directly from an mp3 player or cell phone?

I have the tape extender for my 1541U-II so I'd probably try that first if I wanted to make tapes. Seems like a handy program though.
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Post by 16KVIC20 »

e5frog wrote:Have you tried converting to mp3 and load directly from an mp3 player or cell phone?

I have the tape extender for my 1541U-II so I'd probably try that first if I wanted to make tapes. Seems like a handy program though.
I've not tried that, although the program does also convert to MP3 format. The only thing stopping me is I'm not sure how to connect an MP3 player or cell phone to a VIC 20.

It i8s a handy little program, as you say. I think by experimenting with volume levels and different tape decks I can improve the success rate.

Oddly, I've never tried it for my ZX Spectrum!

I know some people have managed to get a spectrum to load very fast using MP3 format. Is it possible to do the same with the VIC 20?
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Post by e5frog »

I guess the least invasive way is to use a cassette adapter, you could run it directly from the PC as well. If you remove the lid of the datassette it's easier to fit the cord.

Then there's Cassadapt, you can hook an audio source directly to that:
http://cbm8bit.com/index.php?option=com ... it-designs

It would also be possible to hook up a connector on the datassette for external audio.

Have you tried both the kernal and turbo alternatives?
Spectrum was made to use plain audio devices to load from, but I guess you could try it on the VIC as well. There are better ways to load programs though, Final Expansion comes to mind or other SD2IEC device. ;-)


I've heard normal bias tapes work better than the chrome dioxide type.


I logged in today expecting to find a bunch of unread messages - I got none... So I found yours by looking for messages with no reply. Has things been slow here lately?
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Post by 16KVIC20 »

e5frog wrote:I guess the least invasive way is to use a cassette adapter, you could run it directly from the PC as well. If you remove the lid of the datassette it's easier to fit the cord.

Then there's Cassadapt, you can hook an audio source directly to that:
http://cbm8bit.com/index.php?option=com ... it-designs

It would also be possible to hook up a connector on the datassette for external audio.

Have you tried both the kernal and turbo alternatives?
Spectrum was made to use plain audio devices to load from, but I guess you could try it on the VIC as well. There are better ways to load programs though, Final Expansion comes to mind or other SD2IEC device. ;-)


I've heard normal bias tapes work better than the chrome dioxide type.


I logged in today expecting to find a bunch of unread messages - I got none... So I found yours by looking for messages with no reply. Has things been slow here lately?
Ah yes, the cassette adapter, I have heard of people using those, and indeed temporarily removing the datasette lid makes good sense. Not seen cassadapt before, might check that out, so thanks for the link.

I've only tried the kernel. Maybe next time I'll try the turbo version.

The only reason I'm put off by an SD card solution is that I used to have something similar for my spectrum, but I found I was spending longer choosing games for it on the internet and putting it on the CF card, than I was using teh spectrum. Then I had so many games, I didn't know which to play first.

I have a megacart on the way, so that will keep me busy for a while.

I always check in here daily (unless on hols), often there aren't many new posts. I gues teh VIC fans are a small but loyal bunch.
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Post by joshuadenmark »

I have just ordered one of these cassetteadapter for sdcard.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/250640550904?ss ... 2616wt_952

Will post reply when I have tested it on c64 datasette.
Last edited by joshuadenmark on Sun Sep 04, 2011 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by e5frog »

Yes, having a "zillion" games available that can be loaded in an instant takes some of the fun out of it. Although I don't mind putting a cart in once in a while for fast loading and instant fun. ;-)

It's a mediative state while waiting for a game to load, expectations are rising and when it finally loads OK you tend to stick to it for a while because you know it takes some time to load a new one...

With multicarts and others I tend to play a little, swap games, play some, swap game again etc.


Nice solution, I had planned to build one of those cassette tapes with a built in mp3-player - this one is cheap as well. $13 and free shipping. Would be really nice to swap shells on it to something more 80's.
I had the type with a cord in mind though but this seems like a good solution. ;-)
I'm going to get one of these as well.
( Maybe I'll build one in an 8-track tape instead some day... )

It would have been nice if it could play wav as well, don't know how well the mp3 compression works with C64 tape signals.
EDIT:
Found it here as well, lovely well spelled instruction sheet. ;-)
http://www.dinodirect.com/cassette-tape ... o-mp3.html
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Post by joshuadenmark »

Like this retro-looking solution too.

Hope the mp3 compression still leave some bytes for my C64 to read :wink:

The shipping from China often take some time but I will return with some pictures and test result when possible.
Kind regards, Peter.
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Post by e5frog »

I'm tempted to try it out, I have the adapter version with a cord.
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Post by joshuadenmark »

Hi frog

Please let me know the result of your test.
Kind regards, Peter.
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Post by e5frog »

Annoying program this winTZX 0.9a, doesn't seem to save last opened directory so I have to re-open that every time unless I want to place everything in the winTZX-folder. (That's when I finally found the "no-popup help text" button that looks like a bag painted in far too few colors, something like a 16 color Windows color scheme).

When I finally opened the file I tick the MP3-button-"led" and now there's three options lit up in the lower menu WAV, VOC, and the play-button.

I want neither WAV nor VOC so I try and press the play button to get my mp3...
Kernal, turbo or both, well both sounds nice, will be handy to try both versions...

Tick.

WTF! It starts playing it in the speakers!
I recognize the kernal loader and turbo sounds...

What now, start all over - the program has reset and I have to do all of it all over again. What if I wanted to play it back again for some reason?


Back to when the file is loaded, choose WAV this time...
Both kernal and turbo again.

Actual output name is >>thenameoftheprgwithnosuffix<<, I don't remember putting any >> and << there.
Do I want to change it?
tick or cross, no no need to change it.

All done.

WTF! Saved as c:\0.mp3!
What happened to the filename I didn't want to change?

I also got two files, an mp3 and a wav, I had expected only two mp3:s, one with the kernal version and one with the turbo version...

Seems like they save the kernal version first in the mp3 and then the turbo or if it's a turbo loader first and then the program "turbocharged."

When outputting to kernal only it's a much bigger file so I guess the "both" option includes the loader as well.




Anyway, I wasn't able to load anything, even tried the wavprg that comes with audiotap, converted to wav and made a 320kbps stereo mp3 of my little 3kB program but the best result was a found message and then error without loading further - even when holding the space bar to skip the found message asap.

I have a Load-IT-datassette and I the only time I got result was when the audio was at maximum level. That's all LEDs on and the last one flickering.

Could be the sound quality coming out of my really old 128MB mp3-player of course. Maybe I'll try it from the phone when I find my adapter cable. IIRC it also plays wav files so I could test if it's the mp3 coding or something else that's not working.

Two hours "wasted"... ;-)



Imagine a Cassadapt that had a micoSD card reader and loaded tap files, that would be handy.
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Post by e5frog »

Manged to load! Twice!

I converted to wav with the Audiotap wavprg.exe and then to a 320kbps mono mp3 in my audio program (Cool Edit Pro). Played it so I got half the volume on the Load-IT LED.

Don't know if I just got lucky with the volume setting or what it was, maybe Cool Edit makes better mp3:s.

I guess now I'd like to check at what bitrate it stops loading.

160 kbps doesn't seem to work, better stay at 320 then.
It would be nice if there was a computer audio option in the mp3 encoders - so we'd have the best possible signal with the best possible compression. It's maybe possible to simplify the encoding procedure a lot if you know from the start what the frequency range is.


Also noticed that the mp3:s winTZX makes doesn't seem to work properly in my mp3-player. They have the wrong length and seems to play too fast. So that could probably be the main problem.


EDIT
I experimented on the C64 but it loaded fine on the VIC20 as well, even easier there as it doesn't pause at the found-message and waits for user input. I'll try the winTZX-mp3 version with the cell phone later at least it seems to play OK there.
Last edited by e5frog on Mon Sep 05, 2011 4:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by joshuadenmark »

Hi e5frog

Thank you for your very thorough test.
Congratulations you got it to work, so it was not entirely wasted hours.

Allow me to use your experience when I receive my SDCassette in a while. No need to reinvent the wheel twice: O)

The bit I have worked with winTZX has also been associated with several crashes and strange behavior of the program ..

I really look forward to load from cassette and thanks for your detailed description of your experiments.

Maybe you should do a wiki on the project because it sure is the cheapest way to to copy from PC to Vic?
Kind regards, Peter.
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Post by e5frog »

It's tricky to get the volume right but when you have done that it's a lot easier to succeed the following times.

160 kbps is too little and that's with the kernal loader. For an mp3 player that can play wav:s it's better to use wav anyway. At 320 kbps the wav:s aren't that much bigger.

I tried 240 kbps, it almost worked, found the file but it didn't load properly.

256kbps worked for me as well, but why not go with 320 if the mp3-player can handle it?


I figured out why my files were called c:\0.mp3 in winTZX
I have a directory called something like c:\0.emulation files\c64\prg as I want it to alway come first when the directory is listed. winTZX cuts everything after the . and thinks that's the filename.
Another annoying thing is that when you run a batch mode you can't seem to select the files in the file viewer, you select one and then it asks about the entire directory that this was in.
I'm guessing he didn't know how to code it.
It also overwrites an existing file with the same name without asking, doesn't add any (number) or anything like that. Which means if I run a batch from my normal directory I end up with one 0.wav and one 0.mp3. :-D

Not hard to work around the problem, just put the files in the installation directory and don't have any . in the file path.


I made an attempt and updated the lame_enc.dll which is a version from 2007 but changing to the latest version from 15th April 2011 didn't help. It still behaves oddly in my old mp3-player.


Tried loading the winTZX version from my phone, didn't manage to load it properly, almost there but the same error every time. Out of data and a corrupted listing. No load error.

I wasn't able to load my own homemade mp3 from the cell phone, I got nothing at all. Perhaps I need to swap phases there...

Yes, an inverted wav loaded on the cell phone, the non-inverted one didn't.
So let's see if an inverted winTZX loads from the mp3-player then... It seemed to have other problems though.


EDIT: Finally, an inverted winTZX loaded just fine from my cell phone - first attempt.
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Post by e5frog »

We have a problem.

The cassette adapter is only rated for "Bit rate: 32 kbps ~ 256 kbps.cbr/vbr." and winTZX outputs 320kbps.

I managed to load at 265kbps but with the current release of winTZX you can't change the bit setting (easily).
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