Question About Cassette Drives.

ssjlance · Post by **ssjlance** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:43 pm

I know that Atari/Sega style joysticks work with the VIC-20, and I was curious if the VIC-20 would work with other company's cassette drives? I'm not exactly sure and don't to waste money on an incompatible drive that costs less than the CN2 model. Thanks for any help that can be offered!

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:40 am

Unfortunately, the 64 and VIC-20 can use the same type of tape drives but that's where it ends.

Surprinsingly, the 128 also supports the venerable old datasette but there isn't much use for it on that machine.

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:04 am

Surprinsingly, the 128 also supports the venerable old datasette but there isn't much use for it on that machine.

I'd lay money on that being for the C64 compatability mode. Who'd want a 64 without a tape drive?

Do I remember correctly that the c128D didn't have a tape port?

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:32 am

Just so we're totally clear: tapes drives for OTHER (non-commodore) computers are non compatible with the VIC, but there were several companies that made clone drives for the Commodore only.

Zeela · Post by **Zeela** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 12:07 pm

Tepic wrote:
Do I remember correctly that the c128D didn't have a tape port?

Nope, that's not correct. Both my C128D's has tape ports. But they are the plastic version of the C128D. Maybe the C128DCR (metallic casing) was without tape port?

// Zee

MacbthPSW · Post by **MacbthPSW** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:04 pm

Tepic wrote:I'd lay money on that being for the C64 compatability mode. Who'd want a 64 without a tape drive?

Most of us that don't live in the UK

Do I remember correctly that the c128D didn't have a tape port?

It's the SX-64 that doesn't have a tape port.

Tepic · Post by **Tepic** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:12 pm

I never had a 128D but always wanted one. The tape port thing is just something I was told as a kid.

Carts were way to expensive! I think the only carts I had on my vic were ythe ones I was given with it. Jupiter lander and Star battle.

ssjlance · Post by **ssjlance** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:52 pm

Oh well, at least I know now. What's a good price to pay for one?

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:27 pm

Tepic wrote:Who'd want a 64 without a tape drive?

Yeah, pretty much EVERYONE I knew in Canada got rid of their datasette when they upgraded from VIC-20 to C64. I knew tons of people with Commodore 64s in high school, and we all had 1541s. No one used a datasette anymore in Canada (and the US, from what I had heard).

So I found it very strange when I found out the datasettes were still the main storage medium for C64 in Europe.

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:44 am

I used a Datasette for years with my VIC and then C64. I simply couldn't afford a 1541 until later.

I don't miss it at all

I keep one around "just in case", but never really use it.

As for a price, the Cincinnati Commodore club has them for sale for $2. Yes, $2.

http://www.geocities.com/c64-128-amiga/sale/hard.txt

MacbthPSW · Post by **MacbthPSW** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 12:18 pm

ral-clan wrote:So I found it very strange when I found out the datasettes were still the main storage medium for C64 in Europe.

It wasn't even all of Europe, really, it was mostly the UK where they were so popular. Other countries that were big C= places were mostly disk by the mid 80s too, like Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany. Disk was very common in Australia too, fwiw.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:15 pm

What do you think the reaason was for its popularity in the UK?

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 2:50 pm

Jeff-20 wrote:What do you think the reaason was for its popularity in the UK?

It wasn't so much that the C2N was popular so much as the 1541 et al was unpopular and the reason was price. The 64 was already considerably more expensive than the Spectrum and most folks couldn't/didn't want to spend the extra money for a floppy disk drive.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:05 pm

I have a friend who was teaching in (what was then) Czechoslovakia in the early 90s. He said that people he knew there were still using C64s, and they all had datasettes using some sort of turbo tape loading software. We both thought this was quite funny, as we (in Canada) had all moved on to Amiga stuff several years before, and probably hadn't seen a datasette since our VIC-20 days in the early 80s.

Yes, it was a cost thing as I recall.

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 1:12 am

ral-clan wrote:Yes, it was a cost thing as I recall.

That's true for all of Europe I suppose, although disk drives seem to have been more common in Scandinavia and Germany than in the UK. C= computers were at the low end of the market in North America but not so here. When my family bougth our C64 and 1541 in early 1984 the computer and disk drive cost around SEK 4000 each if i remember correctly. Added up this amounted to almost a month's pay for, say, a blue collar worker or an office clerk.

That would be comparable to the price of a high-end PC package today. And this was at a time when nobody really had a good idea of what you would do with a home computer, so of course a lot of people went for the much cheaper datassette.