Vic Stock Control

History and Preservation Issues

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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by pixel »

orion70 wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:11 am A complete WAV file of the whole cassette is now provided in the shared folder linked above (about 10 minutes, 46 Mb). Warning: I could not load the program(s) on the real VIC, as it gives load error even with a good datassette. Bad sign. See if you can sort it out.
Thanks a bunch!

Be sure to record back to tape with full-blast, nuclear meltdown red area.

Tried to build audio2tap on Linux but it's broken. So some Windoze user has to give it a try. :)
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orion70
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by orion70 »

I tried with the old (DOS based) tape64, with no success. Apparently, it does find something when you use the inverted waveform - whatever it means 8) . Didn't try with wav2prg because some dll files are "missing or wrong" (?).

Is there a way to play wav files directly into the vice emulator?
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by pixel »

orion70 wrote: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:05 am Is there a way to play wav files directly into the vice emulator?
Nope. That'd be lovely.
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vicist
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by vicist »

I tried boosting the volume in Audacity but Wav-Prg still wont see anything to convert. :(
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orion70
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by orion70 »

Have you tried fiddling with parameters (VIC 20 clock, inverted waveform, speed, etc.)? Sorry I can't help more, will do another record with louder volume - avoiding distorted sounds - and changing my Walkman's batteries.
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beamrider
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by beamrider »

I tried wav-prg and messed with a few of the parameters, also boosted volume in audacity.

It recognised a few blocks but many of them were bad.
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by pixel »

I think wav-prg isn't up to it. The recording looks OK – just what I've seen from a bunch of other ancient tapes which load without errors. No need to invert anything.
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orion70
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by orion70 »

Success :)

In the original folder, you can find the "right" wav file (16 bit mono, normalized) and the corresponding TAP file obtained via AudioTAP 2.2.1, normal waveform, VIC-20 PAL clock, sensitivity 60. I tested it OK up until the "set up" file, as stated in the initial Training section of the manual (screenshot attached). If someone wants to test it thoroughly, I'd be grateful. Also, maybe a disk version would be welcome, but I understand it would be quite hard to convert.

Have fun, as far as "fun" is the right word for a stock control program :mrgreen: .
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stock_screenshot.png
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beamrider
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by beamrider »

Good work.

I tried the .tap in your share folder, but I got syntax error in 511117 as I did with my own attempts.

What memory size did you set in VICE?

And did you post the latest correct working .tap file?
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orion70
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by orion70 »

Yep that's the behavior loading the first file in the tape. You should follow the training section of the manual: first load"set up",1,1 with the space between "set" and "up". It will skip several minutes and two files. Then the prompt in the screenshot appears. I guess you have to setup your database before anything else, don't know why the setup was put as last file of the series.
Anyway, this is the only working tap file so far, so much for now.

Oh, in vice I use full blocks, but I guess 16k would suffice.
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orion70
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by orion70 »

Addendum: load or load"",1,1 give the same syntax error with the real cassette on a real machine.
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beamrider
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by beamrider »

Cool. Got it working!

Must say, it's a bit more primitive than I expected even for the Vic. Having to have the descriptions separate from the price etc in memory is a real pain.

They should have made it disk based.

Anyway, good job preserving it. Are you going to upload it to zimmers etc?
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orion70
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Re: Vic Stock Control

Post by orion70 »

Will send tap and manual to zimmers, sure.
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