+Stephen Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 I have a Marantz SD-72 three-head machine that has better specs than cds using metal tapes. Along with DBX, I can make tapes wirh better dynamic range and quality than you can ever get from a cd! I buy thrift store pre-recorded tapes and remaster them! Fun hobby for me for sure! Friends come over and say: "That's a cassette???". Analog FTW, but I won't bring back that can of worms here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormtrooper of Death Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 I also started with a 600XL (16k) without anything else except the Star Raiders cartridge. After 5 months or so i had saved enough money to buy an XC-12 recorder. Finally, able to record games. I used the XC-12 for 3 or 4 years until i got my first 1050 standard drive. Yep, the diskdrive was a great leap forward. But now in 2016, i still like the XC-12 and the games on tape. They have something... a certain feeling. The bleep bleep sounds, 30 mins or longer waiting for a game... But still fun Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdh Posted May 17, 2016 Share Posted May 17, 2016 Anybody else have issues with the XC12? Seem to remember the dreaded boot error occurring way too often (usually 28 minutes in to a 30 minute load ). Perhaps I had a duff deck. The Speccy seemed to be a lot more robust and forgiving with tape loads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Anybody else have issues with the XC12? Seem to remember the dreaded boot error occurring way too often (usually 28 minutes in to a 30 minute load ). Yep. But I have experience with just about any Atari tape model, and all of them had an error rate too high. As much that my first mayor development project was a custom tape loader with retry logic. If there was an error on a tape block, the user would be asked to rewind a bit and press a key. Then the loader resyncs itself with the tape, hopefully retrying the error block successfully, and continues loading. It was really a life saver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 I have them all more than one, and as long as the belt is good, I find the XC11 and XC12 the most reliable. Most issues with the 1010 here. there is a difference between the hong kong version and the japan version, but I can not remember which of these two was the best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Cassettes: Better than... no permanent storage at all. And that, is about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanny Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 If you want to torment yourself with the long loading times, the cc65 compiler suite has an "atari-cassette" configuration which lets you create bootable cassette programs.... :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted May 18, 2016 Share Posted May 18, 2016 Don't miss them. Use my 1010 as retro decor! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliecron Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 I'm into tape. Have a couple of decks hooked up, Yamaha's, and a Realistic for fun. Have the nice Sony TC-D5M. Cleaned out the local Chicago cragislist of used tapes many years ago.. so have hundreds of premium tapes. Funny my last two auctions as a seller were an Atari 800, 830 Acoustic Modem, Cart, and 850. Sold for roughly $100. 34 new Sony UX Pro tapes? $150, hehe.. But yeah have been enjoying the comeback of cassettes.. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor_x Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Ugh.. If anyone else thinks they need to throw away an XM301 or ANY atari modem, PLEASE contact me!!! I will pay for shipping!!!! And yea - I was very happy to get the 1050 as well... Though I used the SHIT out of my 410.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baktra Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Life with cassettes and XC-12 was not that difficult with enhancements such as Rambit Turbo Tape and similar systems (3200-9600 bps vs. 600 bps). Good enough for enterntainment and education, but not for any serious work (even though there were systems that exposed these enhancements in form of a CIO device). It is simply the sequential nature of the cassettes. It is only regrettable that these enhancements required hardware modifications. C64 and ZX users only needed software to get more speed. I still use cassettes for fun (if I push my recently repaired XC-12 hard, I get 4500 bps with cassette adapter and 4000 bps with Maxell UR-90 cassette), but my SIO2SD is also a busy device now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José Pereira Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Now I can't try as I don't have them anymore but I think that when I, on the past, put some music tapes on Atari player(s) they seem to run/move slower than normal players. Was it or the is the same speed as normal tape decks? Just for curiosity... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Tape speed is the same as normal audio players. A "selling point" was you could play recorded audio from tape through the computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodByteXL Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Cassettes: Better than... no permanent storage at all. And that, is about it. Yep, that's why I was thinking about carving my BASIC programs into stone ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José Pereira Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Thanks. That I remembered and that was my thought for the question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Anybody else have issues with the XC12? Seem to remember the dreaded boot error occurring way too often (usually 28 minutes in to a 30 minute load ). Perhaps I had a duff deck. The Speccy seemed to be a lot more robust and forgiving with tape loads. Yep. But I have experience with just about any Atari tape model, and all of them had an error rate too high. I think a better FSK decoder could be made today that would make the decks more error-proof. The circuits Atari used were very simple. It could probably be done in a small micro now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 The tape moves across the heads at the same speed as audio machines. However, the larger the wound reel is (as in more tape wound on) the slower it rotates. In general, audio tapes are usually longer than computer ones, so that might be why you remember it being "slower." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
576XE Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 I'm sorry!!! This circuits MUST NOT be complicated because of simple digital data structure. No more Noise reduction! No more filtering - just simple doing what MUST DO. I mean that technically it must be highly-precision tape driving mechanizme - no more. Keep your velocity and keep your bias (because of different types.) Thus the signal will be as much linearly as possible(as type agreed...) and the dynamic range of the type will decide all the problems. Metal type, perfect bias and we have no trouble data media... I remember the case when I dropped a drop of jam to tape and day after it made it's work... Be carefull! This thing was my first love! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ggn Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Well, without tapes we wouldn't have the awesome ...so there, tapes rule . 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baktra Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 I can't believe that, but this Friday, I have almost bought this fake one in a small shop in Prague: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZZz4igAfVg. Counterfeit cassettes in 2016... Fortunately, the screws and cracks in the cassette shell sounded the red alert on time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoundGammon Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Didn't ANTIC magazine have a resistor mod for the 410 recorder that narrowed the bandwidth for tighter control of the playback tones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 Interesting video on tape production in today's world. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baktra Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 National Audio Company's Audio PRO cassettes... A pity that the postage is prohibitively high to get some in Czech Republic. I have found nice instructable about cassettes. Good reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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