Atari 1010 Program Recorder Error

[sashswash]

Hi,

I am having trouble with my atari 1010 program recorder. When i save a program in basic (using 'csave'), it successfully (or so it says) saves the program. When i go to load it, the tape keeps going longer than the program was saved, and then the atari 800xl returns the message error 138. Does anyone know what is wrong with it?? My vic-20 datasete doesn't do this. thanks

-Matt

[RJ]

According to the 1050 Disk Drive manual, which lists several error #s & explanations:

138: device timeout- "When you sent a command over the serial bus, the device did not respond within the period set by the Operating System for that device command...if the device is a cassette, the tape baud rate may have been mismeasured or the tape improperly positioned. Examine all connections to make sure they are secure..."

 

BASICally (ha!) make sure the program starts loading in the right place & keep the sound up. You'll hear a hi-pitched long tone when it starts loading, & then a repetitive "loading noise" until it's done. Also use good cassettes (which may be hard to find these days!) as the tape ITSELF degrades w/ age & can affect performance.

 

You might try cleaning the heads just for good measure...

[sashswash]

cool, thanks

ill try cleaning it, but i think ill stick with disks... lol

i guess im kinda cheap

[Nukey Shay]

Tape storage itself is flawed...the program can fail if the tape had been stopped at any point in it's lifetime (since the pinch roller of the recorder can put a crease on the tape). And if you want better reliability with the cassette drive, you should use LIST"C:" and ENTER"C:" instead of CSAVE/CLOAD. It will take longer to save and load (since the programs will be written as plain text to the tape insead of "tokenized Basic", but the advantage is that if it does get an error, at least part of the program will be in memory In your case of the tape not finding the end of the file marker, the entire program would have already been loaded.