Why still use tape?

[johncl]

Tape is important, its basically what I grew up with on the C64 here, and I suppose if I had a Vic20 back then it would be tape too. If I find that my game project for the Vic20 is good, I'd love for it to be published on tape by something like Psytronik just to feel the physical release on tape in my hand.

Werent disk drives just insanely expensive compared to the price of the Vic20? I mean for the C64, the 1541 drive cost the same as the machine, but the time floppy drives were more common for the C64 they were practically giving away Vic20 machines here (or actually had stopped selling them all together). Here in Norway, tape drives was the norm really. I recall many evenings of copying and sharing turbo tape games with friends.

Also for the Vic20, even the expanded games dont take much time compared to a C64 which has to fill a substantial amount of memory if the game is big. The unexpanded games are rather fast to load from tape imo.

Naturally for the C64 turbo loaders became the standard and I never really found loading times to be a problem except the many games that were multipart (especially US disk games ported to tape, like the many US Gold games) where playing the game became too slow for my liking. That is possibly why I also strive to code games for the C64 that should fit in a single load.

I remember back in the 80s, my brother made a rather cool tape with many good pirated turbo tape games where he made a piece of software at the start with the turbo loader that listed the games on the tape like a menu, you then chose which one you wanted to load, it instructed you to press fast forward, and the program would stop the motor of the tape drive some seconds before the game was saved, instruct you to press stop and then play. All meticulously timed by using the cassette counter and seeing when it reached each number for where the program was (also then written down beforehand) and then plotted into the table so he knew when to stop the tape drive (he reserved space for the program at the start of the tape). It worked wonderfully and became one of my favourite tapes to boot games up from.

[Forbidden64]

I have just begun reading a book I retrieved from the Bombjack site, namely Cassette Book for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20. It seems to promise that the Datasette can be used in much more efficient and powerful ways than are typically documented and even that they can be made to work faster than disk drives!

Before I delve much further into book and take on the projects listed within, I wanted to ask if anyone else here has experience in the sort of things set out in that book and how pleased anyone here may have been with the results.

I actually was curious after reading this, and did enter this program by hand from the book. It is everything it claims and more. The original load and save are present but you have saving "super powers" using seperate commands like <back arrow>L for load etc.

I saved a program thst normally took 70 counters to load that i had written, then saved it with abacus turbotape and it took just over 5 counters. A staggering 15 seconds (remember that is including the header!!!). I then proceeded to place most of the public domain software i could find at codebase and filled half a tape. My tape contents sheet was so long i ended up putting a sheet of paper in the sleeve becauee i had filled the regular sleeve. That was half a c-60 tape on one side.

It also takes care of the notoriously slow data writing speeds which on the rom loader stop at every block. This thing just beams through it in a flash. So yes. Yes it is worth delving into.

Unfortunately, you would have to relink this for the vic 20, as this program was listed for the 64 if memory serves. The main issue i think for them was the changing addresses for the vic20, and that the turbotape routine would take up more memory than the vic 20 has if entered has data statements in basic. I think a simple monitor combined with just entering the dump might fit, but its better off on a cartridge in an unused fixed bank. (Whenever i get settled from moving i might just make one on one of those prototyping carts i keep seeing on ebay).

Thus proving that paper is the most reliable storage device with the slowest load time...it took hours to type. I also want to say that the c64 rom loader is the most reliable data storage method ever conceived. Turbo tape actually was the problem. If you use this, keep a rom loader backup somewhere too and label it as such. It will load 40 years from today without issues. So will paper.

[Neo-Rio]

Gyrospeed is my tape turbo of choice on the 64.
Accepts files up to 202 blocks and it what it saves autostarts without having to load a separate program.
The largest programs don't go beyond 43 on the counter.

Not sure if there's anything comparable on the vic

[Forbidden64]

Not that I have seen...i think most vic programs are small enough that it is simply not an issue. Or at least that is the general consensus I have read from others. One really easy way to speed up tape loading is to press the record button slightly, and then let go. Then count a few seconds, as many as you dare before actually pressing it down. This shortens the tape leader which is really really long. It is only that long to get past standard audio cassette tapes non-magnetic tape leader. I also noticed most people are using emulators & disk which I just don't do. Tape is simply more fun. On the 64 turbo is almost required as programs start to get into the 8k+ range. For vic most things that require the 8k are primarily because of the screen, as opposed to the actual code size. Still it would be neat to have. I still haven't gotten around to this little project yet, but it is on my list. I just have more pressing matters at the moment. Regardless, there are a lot of tape users out there. I still sometimes type in programs from books etc. I even did for this thread come to think of it! Where do I save them? Tapes of course !

[Forbidden64]

Gyrospeed sounds very cool indeed. I will definitely give that a try sometime.

[Forbidden64]

Incidentally, I have recently been looking around and there are numerous tape speeders for the vic-20. Including turbo tape for the vic from compute gazette, as well as one called rabbit both of which can be found on zimmers
Link:
ftp://www.zimmers.net/pub/cbm/vic20/roms/tools/4k/

The instructions for the rabbit are incidentally included in the DEC issue of compute gazette, which while it wasnt meant to be a manual, does actually list out all the commands and what they do.
link to said magazine is here(issue #06)

http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/magaz ... azette.htm

So apparently there are tape accelerators for the vic! Also from what I understand, the turbo tape from compute! builds in its own self loader so you dont have to worry about loading the loader separately.