Prefer disk.
Please note that there are a lot of active vic user with a full memory expansion too: Ultimate Expander, Final Expansion, Mega-Cart for example
So 16/24k game with some data on BLK5 is not a big problem in these days
Should I develop for tape or disk or both?
Moderator: Moderators
You could make a game which sequentially loads "endless" amounts of data. If you use a tape turbo that is at least 5X regular transfer rate, you could fit about 300 kB per side on a C60. That should not be impossible to do.
If you can get ahold of a tape turbo that loads at 10X without errors and combine with C90 media, I believe you could cram in 900K per side. That is more than five sides of a floppy disk. Imagine a VIC-20 mega game that has some 500-700K of sequentially loading game data.
Yes, the difference between a tape turbo and a disk turbo is that while both make loading faster, the tape turbo will also use less magnetic media so you can store a lot more on the same amount of tape.
If you can get ahold of a tape turbo that loads at 10X without errors and combine with C90 media, I believe you could cram in 900K per side. That is more than five sides of a floppy disk. Imagine a VIC-20 mega game that has some 500-700K of sequentially loading game data.
Yes, the difference between a tape turbo and a disk turbo is that while both make loading faster, the tape turbo will also use less magnetic media so you can store a lot more on the same amount of tape.
Anders Carlsson
Do you need a Turbo-Tape ?
Take a look to my Turbo-Tape 2.0, it is included on Mega-Cart and when you have turbo-saved programs or datas you don't need it for turbo-loading.
You may turbo-save your programs with Turbo-Tape 2.0 and users do not need it for turbo-loading your program, just LOAD with a normal Vic without any tool.
For example, this is the tap file of the turbo-taped version of Tetris+ for Vics+3K, if you try it on Vice you may see that it takes about 10 seconds for loading.
Take a look to my Turbo-Tape 2.0, it is included on Mega-Cart and when you have turbo-saved programs or datas you don't need it for turbo-loading.
You may turbo-save your programs with Turbo-Tape 2.0 and users do not need it for turbo-loading your program, just LOAD with a normal Vic without any tool.
For example, this is the tap file of the turbo-taped version of Tetris+ for Vics+3K, if you try it on Vice you may see that it takes about 10 seconds for loading.
Mega-Cart: the cartridge you plug in once and for all.
I don't know about you guys, but I think the stringy drive is the wave of the future:
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/06/strange_compute.html
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/06/strange_compute.html
Normal kernal routines writes the program to the tape many times while turbo-tapes simple write programs once, so you need good tapes if you think to preserve it.Jeff-20 wrote:how exactly does this work? How does
it speed up the program without lowering reliability?
TurboTape 2.0 code is based on Compute!s gazette TurboTape (July 1985 - Issue 25, Vol. 3, No. 7), after Fixed by DR. B. v1.2 there is a full detail of a first version published on ISSUE 56 / JANUARY 1985 / PAGE 124.
My version allows to speed-up any vic program for any memory configuration and unexpanded program that uses all 3.5kb.
Mega-Cart: the cartridge you plug in once and for all.
- Mike
- Herr VC
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Twice, to be exact. The copy is there to check whether it is identical to the original. Otherwise a ?LOAD ERROR results. Errors can only be detected with this scheme, but not corrected.nbla000 wrote:Normal kernal routines writes the program to the tape many times while ...
The turbo-tapes also use an own, faster, signal modulation. This really doesn't pose any problems regarding signal quality, as the highest frequencies involved are still lower than, say, 4 kHz - while a good tape makes good recordings at 8 kHz, or more.
More important is the resilience against different recording speeds. Whether a slow tape read back on a fast tape works, and vice versa, sorts out good tape speeders from bad ones. Tape speeds can differ by 10%.
Michael