C2N Datassette "works", but searches indefinitely

[Laner]

I have a datassette drive (the older style that matches the early Vic-20), which powers on and the motor seems to work. It appears to save successfully, but when loading, it just searches indefinitely. I have a couple of prerecorded cassettes as well which it doesn't recognize anyway.

 

Any suggestions on how to get this to work? I cleaned the heads with alcohol, but it made no difference.

[CRTGAMER]

Make sure the cassette tapes are standard and not the CRO2 or metal tapes.

 

Rewind, Stop, Press SHIFT RUNSTOP on keyboard and press play at the prompt.

[carlsson]

You could try adjust the azimuth angle on the tape head, but if the same program you just saved won't load back, it likely is another problem.

[7800fan]

Blank or degraded tape may appear to not load anything. Try testing by getting a good blank tape, type something simple in BASIC like:

 

10 print "hello ";
20 goto 10

then save it (save"test") and see how it goes. Then rewind it and type load and try it. If it doesn't load, your tape player may have bad head or something. If it finds test and loads that without an issue, your old tape is probably toast.

 

Magnetic media don't always retain content after some 30 years.

[bpatte02]

Blank or degraded tape may appear to not load anything. Try testing by getting a good blank tape, type something simple in BASIC like:

 

10 print "hello ";
20 goto 10

then save it (save"test") and see how it goes. Then rewind it and type load and try it. If it doesn't load, your tape player may have bad head or something. If it finds test and loads that without an issue, your old tape is probably toast.

 

Magnetic media don't always retain content after some 30 years.

Going off of this, you could purchase a modern homebrew on cassette and try that. That will give you a new tape with data to read. Just a suggestion, that way if you do find out the datasette is bad, when you get another or fix it, you'll also have a new game to try.

[carlsson]

Cleaning both the erase and read/write heads with a few drops of isopropanol alcohol or similar might not hurt.

[bpatte02]

You might also try using a contact cleaner on the datasette port. The read and write use different contacts so it could be the read contact is dirty. Also check the pins on the datasette plug, it's possible that the read pin isn't making contact.

[TMR]

Cleaning both the erase and read/write heads with a few drops of isopropanol alcohol or similar might not hurt.

Cleaning the pinch roller is a good idea too.