Ira Goldklang's TRS-80 Revived Site » Knut Roll-Lund

March 25, 2008 – New Utility by Knut Roll-Lund

Ira — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:01:23 +0000

Knut, master of TRS-80 cassettes, has done it again with the release of his new utility, PLAY CAS. While this utility can do a lot of things, its main function is to allow you to plug your TRS-80 EAR connector into your PC Soundcard headphone output, and turn your PC into a TRS-80 cassette player. Once hooked up in this manner, the utility will play a CAS file stored on your PC into the TRS-80 plug, so your TRS-80 thinks it is getting input from a cassette, but its really from the PC.

Play CAS checks the CAS to determine whether its a Level 1, Level 2, or Model III Highspeed image.

Download and instructions are available on Knut’s PLAYCAS Web Page or on the Media Conversion page.

February 5, 2008 – New WAV2CAS

Ira — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:52:06 +0000

Knut Roll-Lund has released an updated version of his wonderful WAV2CAS utility. It is far more than a recorded WAV to .CAS file converter. You can download it here or from his Home Site.

The new version includes the following:

Windows GUI

Sound level autodetection to allow you to know if your volume setting is off

File type identification on the fly (BAS / SYSTEM)

BASIC Program Analysis/Display

July 20, 2007 – Updated Cassette Utilities from Knut Roll-Lund

Ira — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:22:34 +0000

As some of you may know, what Matthew Reed and Tim Mann did for diskettes, Knut has done for cassettes.

Knut has now refined his wonder cassette utilities and has released a major major upgrade. The new version has the following features/improvements:

Reads LEVEL 1, LEVEL 2 and MODEL III High-Speed

Reads tapes with more than one “file” and they can be any combination of the above types.

Decodes the data to verify the contents and displays the result

The LEVEL 1 and LEVEL 2 decoding is better (now it is probably better than the original)

Improved Model III High-Speed decoding, some special typical errors are handled too.

Dropout problems are almost gone, as long as there is data wav2cas can read it.

There are currently a few outstanding issues:

Will not read tapes that have very bad timing

Doesn’t like ringing so don’t record with too high volume.

Will probably have problems with system tapes output directly by EDTASM, because EDTASM inserts pauses.

You should use at least 22,050 samples per second when recording.

While it understands basic and system tapes, it does not yet understand assembly from EDTASM or Scripsit documents.

Disassembly is not yet implemented.

No documentation or help file is supplied.

You can download it here, or from Knut’s Web Site.

May 16, 2007 – What’s Up With The Changes?

Ira — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:24:33 +0000

As many of you have no doubt noticed, I have scaled back the site to focus on information regarding the various home TRS-80 models and emulators and utilities related thereto. I know that people are curious as to why the dramatic shift was made.

The bottom line is that the site takes a massive commitment, and the time, energy and money would be better spent on my family. It has gotten exponentially harder and harder to maintain the site each year. When it comes down to it, family is the most important, and shedding myself of the burdens brought on from the site will be a welcome relief.

The sites original goal was to preserve the memory of these machines and to provide help to those who wished to relive their experiences with their first computer. I have converted peopleâ€™s long lost papers and records (and the memoirs of their deceased loved ones). The site has enabled people to relive their simpler days. I never charged anyone a single penny for any thing I ever did, even when blank DVD’s, blank floppies, and postage were involved, and did it all gladly.

I think the site has worked wonders to preserve the TRS-80 through the hard work of many people who have written software to let us image and archive what seems to be rapidly degrading disks and cassettes, and to run those images on modern hardware. While there are so many people to thank for their help, and I am loth to even do so with the fear of forgetting anyone, there are 3 main people (in this category) I found to be personally helpful to me in this endeavor.

First, is Matthew Reed. At a time when there was no freeware utility to read a TRS-80 disk into DSK format using modern hardware, Matthew rode to the rescue by writing READDISK and releasing it as freeware. Without this utility there would have been no widely distributable way for people to image TRS-80 diskettes.

Matthew also prepared, in my opinion, the finest DOS and Windows TRS-80 emulators. Matthew always took my bug reports, suggestions, and wishes to heart and Matthewâ€™s latest emulator remains the only TRS-80 emulator which can emulate a TRS-80 printer. An example of something which Matthew had incorporated as a site aid was â€œAutoboot”, which enabled me to mount a DSK image without having to know whether the disk was Model 1, 3, or 4. This featured stopped me from having to go to Configure, and cycling through each model, one by one, if a hard reboot on a DSK image produced nothing more than an empty screen, and the list of features which Matthew put into his emulators in an effort to help me out does not stop there.

Second (but, again, in no specific order) is Tim Mann. While Timâ€™s efforts are all his own, his preparation of the drivers for the Catweasel floppy disk controller card enabled the reading of non-standard and problematic disks. Disks which I would occasionally receive proved excellent fodder for the utility, and Tim was always willing to take bug reports and feature requests.

Third (but, again, in no specific order) is Knut Roll-Lund. Knut is doing for cassettes what Tim and Matthew did for diskettes. Knutâ€™s WAV2CAS utilities enabled the archiving of cassettes. When Knut finished his Level II compatible converter (500 baud), I came up with WAVâ€™s for Level 1 cassettes (250 baud). Knut worked hard to create a Level 1 converter, just as I wound up with Model III tapes (1500 baud and NOT straight ASCII). Knut has since been working on utilities which attempt to determine if a SYSTEM or BASIC tape was not a good dump. The day when Knut manages to integrate an audio capture program which then monitors volume levels, converts to CAS, and test the result for validity, should be a considered a very significant day in the TRS-80 world.

There are also those who have donated hardware (such as disk drives and cassette players â€“ both of which I can easily and quickly wear out) and other help. My thanks go out to these people as well.

I intend to continue with the site, adding information as I find it. I will certainly post any updates as to emulators or tools to read TRS-80 disks and cassettes, and I hope those who develop these fine tools keep doing so with great gusto. I also intend to continue to add any links for any TRS-80 related sites which are out there or which may show up.