ranger_lennier Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 I recently borrowed a collection of cassette tapes which were primarily for the Astrocade console. The collection originally belonged to Paul Zibits, a subscriber to The Arcadian newsletter. I found quite a bit of interesting programs in there, with a lot of Bally BASIC programs from 1979 to 1980. Mixed in with the collection was a tape labeled "Hamurabi - Atari". It's definitely data, and definitely not for the Astrocade. Beyond that my certainty ends, but I suspect it's for an Atari 8-bit computer. On a different tape, I actually found an original adaptation of Hamurabi for the Astrocade by Paul Zibits himself (inspired by BASIC Computer Games edited by David Ahl). Perhaps this is another version of that, or maybe it's identical to one of the known versions of Hamurabi. I'd like to get it running, but I haven't had much luck so far. I tried A8CAS from http://a8cas.sourceforge.net/ There wasn't much in the way of instructions, but trying a simple conversion I get a lot of errors. I end up with a 47KB file, but of course it won't actually load. I tried applying a highpass or bandpass filter first, but this didn't seem to help either. I'm not sure if there's anything else I should try. Does anyone have tips for processing tapes like this? Are there other utilities to try? I uploaded a raw recording of the tape to the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/paul-zibits-astrocade-collection/Non-Astrocade+data/Hamurabi+-+Atari+(raw).wav And finally, here's my output trying to process the tape: a8cas-convert.exe Hamurabi.wav Hamurabi.cas new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000884 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000887 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000896 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000890 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000884 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000882 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 3 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000886 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000594 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 0 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000884 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000292 Framing error at byte 1 Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000884 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 1 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000296 Ambiguous bit at byte 3, signal 0 Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000890 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000887 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000883 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000295 Ambiguous bit at byte 1, signal 0 Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.001175 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 0 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000295 End of data block at byte 2, found IRG=0.000099 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000870 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 0 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000883 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 3 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000296 Ambiguous bit at byte 1, signal 1 Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000881 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000887 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000891 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000887 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000885 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000893 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000884 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... failed new block... Attempting to recognize data block... succeeded: bit_length=0.000892 Ambiguous bit at byte 0, signal 2 new block... Attempting to recognize data block... failed 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 Hopefully @kr0tki will respond, he wrote a8cas and has processed hundreds of tapes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarxx Posted November 2, 2021 Share Posted November 2, 2021 (edited) CLOAD WAV into BASIC and saved as CAS on Altirra (CSAVE to a new tape). Hamurabi - Atari (raw).cas Edited November 2, 2021 by Zarxx 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranger_lennier Posted November 2, 2021 Author Share Posted November 2, 2021 Thanks for the quick work with that! It's definitely a version of Hamurabi from BASIC Computer Games: https://www.atariarchives.org/basicgames/showpage.php?page=79 While the Astrocade version required quite a few alterations to get running, this seems to follow the published version more closely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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