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CASSETTE POWER


sparkdrummer

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I thought I'd start a thread on the power of cassettes discussing utilities, games, hardware,etc.

 

I'll start it out with a dsk of utilites by Tonny Brouwer.

The most interesting program on the disk is Tape Streamer. It will copy a ss/sd disk to tape and back again. I tried it a couple of times and it seemed a bit fickle, but did work. I compared the "streamed" disk from tape to the original disk and it was exactly the same. I think this program runs at about 1200 baud as does other software on the dsk. Source files are on the disk as well.

 

T_BROUWER.DSK

 

TAPEPOWER1.pdf

 

 

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It does not take up too much tape. I think it runs at a higher baud rate than a normal cassette save. The audio signal is much different than a normal cassette save and the signal replayed is louder. I think thats why its finicky on the tape to disk save. Ill have to play with it a bit more.

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  • 5 months later...

Ha! I remember writing this code. It is al based on the basicode standard, an attempt of a group of people to create a cross-platform basic. With it came a digital format to stream programs from/to tape, and I figured out how to read/write (actually, I created the reader while a friend of mine, also called Ton, created the initial version of the writer). Then I started modifying the timings to create turbo loaders/savers, utilities to stream program files to tape, and this full disk backup program. I remember also reverse engineering the ZX-Spectrum tape protocol, so ZX-Spectrum bitmaps pictures (which could be saved separately) could be loaded on TI. One key improvement was that I use the leader tone to calibrate the algorithm, so timing constants could be removed and the program would work when I increased the tape pitch (had a player with a speed wheel). I also built in a second crystal with a switch in my console to clock it to 3MHz. The VDP got confused by this speed at times, but the tape loader actually worked better.  So you could set the computer to turbo, and crank up the speed of the tape...

 

Funny enough, this was like 30 years ago, and today I'm working on reverse engineering a variant of SPDIF. Same box of tricks, only kHz have become MHz...

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wow! nice story Tonny Brouwer! :) thanks!
because you mentioned ZX Spectrum jumped in my mind that i have a cassette tape with this label.
I Still not found how to load these but it is for TI-99/4A

I still not deciphered all the meanings of the letters in the brackets on the right

I am pretty sure that (B) = Basic, (BE) = Extended Basic, (SP) = Spectrum (i guess)
remaining (C) and (P) that i still not sure... anyway at least with (C) should be an assembler program, maybe also an MM program often.
(P) i still haven't an idea.

 

Now, because Atic Atac is a ZX spectrum game, I have the impression that  in this tape there is a sort of loader to load it but still not understand how to do it :p

maybe you can have some suggestion?

 

69571515_2348750885180086_8855038910019928064_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_oc=AQmpr_ivR0hJaBqUyBLfyezk-SeZTQUgyw-effvu9099KmqpcRu14SUjKi9nqrKbzKI&_nc_ht=scontent.ffco3-1.fna&oh=a3d404ed9697669d71be70648624140f&oe=5E0126E1

Edited by ti99iuc
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20 hours ago, ti99iuc said:

wow! nice story Tonny Brouwer! :) thanks!
because you mentioned ZX Spectrum jumped in my mind that i have a cassette tape with this label.
I Still not found how to load these but it is for TI-99/4A

I still not deciphered all the meanings of the letters in the brackets on the right

I am pretty sure that (B) = Basic, (BE) = Extended Basic, (SP) = Spectrum (i guess)
remaining (C) and (P) that i still not sure... anyway at least with (C) should be an assembler program, maybe also an MM program often.
(P) i still haven't an idea.

 

Now, because Atic Atac is a ZX spectrum game, I have the impression that  in this tape there is a sort of loader to load it but still not understand how to do it ?

maybe you can have some suggestion?

 

69571515_2348750885180086_8855038910019928064_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_oc=AQmpr_ivR0hJaBqUyBLfyezk-SeZTQUgyw-effvu9099KmqpcRu14SUjKi9nqrKbzKI&_nc_ht=scontent.ffco3-1.fna&oh=a3d404ed9697669d71be70648624140f&oe=5E0126E1

The loader I'm talking about can only load spectrum bitmaps from tape. They're like a separate tape format.

I'm pretty sure my program presents a menu with options to load/save from tape/disk. I remember mailing this to Ray Kazmer when I first finished it.

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10 hours ago, sparkdrummer said:

Here is CASSETTE TAPE LABELER put out by Asgard back in the day. Makes a decent J-card for cassettes.

SSSD.dsk 90 kB · 6 downloads CASS_POWER.pdf 18.97 kB · 6 downloads

Looks pretty good, but sadly I still have no way to print from the TI. ?

Maybe someday, there will be a "print to PDF" option for the TI so those of us without legacy printers can still use the printing options in many of the old programs.

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On 9/5/2019 at 6:06 PM, --- Ω --- said:

Looks pretty good, but sadly I still have no way to print from the TI. ?

Maybe someday, there will be a "print to PDF" option for the TI so those of us without legacy printers can still use the printing options in many of the old programs.

I thought you had an HDX setup. You can print to a PC with it using Fred Kaal's TI99 Print program...

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49 minutes ago, Vorticon said:

I thought you had an HDX setup. You can print to a PC with it using Fred Kaal's TI99 Print program...

I used to have an HDX setup, but after getting the P-Box TIPI I figured it was a little redundant  The TIPI also enabled me to get rid of the "rats nest" of cables.  Now only one cable from a wall-wart replaces all of this...

 

913607083_RatsNest.thumb.JPG.71891c48fcf64f9d697c5adebb0ce2b9.JPG

 

... but yeah, the inability to print was the only drawback, on everything else it is a MAJOR improvement.

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16 hours ago, --- Ω --- said:

I used to have an HDX setup, but after getting the P-Box TIPI I figured it was a little redundant  The TIPI also enabled me to get rid of the "rats nest" of cables.  Now only one cable from a wall-wart replaces all of this...

 

913607083_RatsNest.thumb.JPG.71891c48fcf64f9d697c5adebb0ce2b9.JPG

 

... but yeah, the inability to print was the only drawback, on everything else it is a MAJOR improvement.

I wonder if that's a feature which could be added to the TIPI functionality. Seems pretty important...

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5 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I wonder if that's a feature which could be added to the TIPI functionality. Seems pretty important...

Pretty easy to do actually.. I started working on this before life got too interesting .. you can easily set up a cron on the PI to output printed info, text only works pretty well but i was trying to get epson graphics to convert to something the PI could ouput to a modern printer. little tougher.  Anyone's welcome to try this themselves

 

$ sudo apt-get install cups
$ sudo cupsctl --remote-any
$ sudo /etc/init.d/cups restart

 

that should get printer capability.. plug in a usb printer and go, if you have a networked printer you will have to set it up with the web interface.. http://tipi:631 should get you the cups screen.. https://opensource.com/article/18/3/print-server-raspberry-pi   ymmv

 

print a file from the pi: http://www.raspberry-pi-geek.com/Archive/2016/20/Print-with-shell-commands-courtesy-of-CUPS  (this will only do TEXT likely, unless you output code for your particular printer from the TI)

so I'd make a cron job on the pi that checks if there's a file like /home/tipi/tipi_disk/printme and if there is, print it.. then remove it or rename it so it isnt there the next time the print check comes around 

 

then print on the TI to TIPI.printme  and away you go

 

Greg

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