18 Jun
2005
18 Jun
'05
2 p.m.
I'm having a hell of a time getting any program to load, so far I've been
Totally unsuccessful.
Anyone have any tips or advice they can throw at me?
Would love to hear anything at all :)
18 Jun
18 Jun
4:02 p.m.
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Gary Sparkes wrote:
I'm having a hell of a time getting any program to
load, so far I've been
Totally unsuccessful.
You're having a vintage experience. This is unfortunately pretty
much how it went in 1980, only there was no mailing list for you
to gripe on :-)
Audio cassette data systems are notoriously finicky about tape
speed and volume, then cleanliness, etc.
You also have to hope that when the tapes were made, they were
with fresh batteries (or on AC adapter) and the volume was set
right, etc. It is not only possible, it was COMMON, to make tapes
that were never readable, even once.
I recall (now, with prodding, ouch) tense
rewind/play/SHIT!/rewind/play/SHIT!/... sessions with my
sole cassette-based storage system.
5:44 p.m.
Well, I got a program I made to load up, even if it was just a one liner ;)
I guess the tapes are not very good :)
I've been googling around and couldn't find much in the way of software
Anyone know any good spots for programs?
Also - would just recording the programs as wav files work well?
If that's the case, I'll be able to feed the computer out into the
Tapedeck, since I can't get it to take anything directly from the TS
(at least, audiable on THAT deck, computer input is quite audiable,
I have another deck I can't load from but I managed to write a
Program to!)
And on another note, is ZXTAPE sensitive to cpu speed?
On 6/18/05 5:02 PM, "Tom Jennings" <tomj at wps.com> wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Gary Sparkes wrote:
I'm having a hell of a time getting any
program to load, so far I've been
Totally unsuccessful.
You're having a vintage experience. This is unfortunately pretty
much how it went in 1980, only there was no mailing list for you
to gripe on :-)
Audio cassette data systems are notoriously finicky about tape
speed and volume, then cleanliness, etc.
You also have to hope that when the tapes were made, they were
with fresh batteries (or on AC adapter) and the volume was set
right, etc. It is not only possible, it was COMMON, to make tapes
that were never readable, even once.
I recall (now, with prodding, ouch) tense
rewind/play/SHIT!/rewind/play/SHIT!/... sessions with my
sole cassette-based storage system.
7:01 p.m.
In message <BEDA1C12.3463%mokuba at gmail.com>
Gary Sparkes <mokuba at gmail.com> wrote:
I've been googling around and couldn't find
much in the way of software
Anyone know any good spots for programs?
Isn't the TS-1000 just a rebadged Sinclair ZX81? If it is, then ZX81 software
should work fine on it.
Also - would just recording the programs as wav files
work well?
Probably, assuming you sample the signal at about 11025Hz (or more). This is
assuming the maximum frequency in the signal is 4000Hz (and the data storage
circuit uses FSK) - if it's higher, use a higher sample rate.
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
SLEEP.COM *** Process interrupted. Kill intruder (Y/N)?
19 Jun
19 Jun
1 p.m.
On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, Philip Pemberton wrote:
In message <BEDA1C12.3463%mokuba at gmail.com>
Gary Sparkes <mokuba at gmail.com> wrote:
Storage is cheap. Just use 44Khz (i.e. "linear").
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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I've been googling around and couldn't
find much in the way of software
Anyone know any good spots for programs?
Isn't the TS-1000 just a rebadged Sinclair ZX81? If it is, then ZX81 software
should work fine on it.
Also - would just recording the programs as wav
files work well?
Probably, assuming you sample the signal at about 11025Hz (or more). This is
assuming the maximum frequency in the signal is 4000Hz (and the data storage
circuit uses FSK) - if it's higher, use a higher sample rate. 
22 Jun
22 Jun
10:15 a.m.
On 6/19/05, Philip Pemberton <philpem at dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
In message <BEDA1C12.3463%mokuba at gmail.com>
Isn't the TS-1000 just a rebadged Sinclair ZX81?
If it is, then ZX81 software
should work fine on it.
Yes, pretty much. 2K instead of 1K as standard, AFAICR.
Q.v.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TS1000
Which IIRC I wrote... :?)
--
Liam Proven
Home: http://welcome.to/liamsweb * Blog: http://lproven.livejournal.com
AOL, Yahoo UK: liamproven * ICQ: 73187508 * MSN: lproven at hotmail.com
25 Jun
25 Jun
11:03 p.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
Yes, pretty much. 2K instead of 1K as standard,
AFAICR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TS1000
Which IIRC I wrote... :?)
Along these lines, I have a nice Timex Sinclair 1000 package if anyone is
interested. Main machine, memory expansion IIRC, commerical program diskettes,
and lots of technical documentation. If interested, email me and I can dig it
out and get a full list of materials.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
18 Jun
18 Jun
11:19 p.m.
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005 18:44:34 -0400
Gary Sparkes <mokuba at gmail.com> wrote:
Well, I got a program I made to load up, even if it
was just a one
liner ;) I guess the tapes are not very good :)
I've been googling around and couldn't find much in the way of
software Anyone know any good spots for programs?
Also - would just recording the programs as wav files work well?
If that's the case, I'll be able to feed the computer out into the
Tapedeck, since I can't get it to take anything directly from the TS
(at least, audiable on THAT deck, computer input is quite audiable,
I have another deck I can't load from but I managed to write a
Program to!)
A somewhat 'crude' but simple thing you can try is to listen to the
audiotape sound of the tape you created which you say was successful.
Then listen audibly to the tapes you're trying to recover. If the pitch
seems to match for the most part it isn't a speed problem. If you have
an oscilloscope, look at the amplitude of the signal out of the cassette
drive of the new 'working' tape and compare to the one you're trying to
recover.
I haven't done this, but there are decent tools nowadays for what could
be called 'high performance audio editing' that you can throw at the
problem, if you use your sound card to digitize the audio to a WAV file.
I use Cool Edit 2000 (much less expensive than full-bore Cool Edit,
probably no longer available) for audio work. There are a LOT of
powerful tools for fiddling with audio now that we have all the
horsepower for DSP that a modern pee-cee provides.
Somebody should develop an 'audio datacassette emulator' for the kind of
thing you're trying to do. I have a T/S 1000 that I'd use more if I had
something like that to use with it. Ideally it would even have a
'remote on' input, i.e. the TRS-80 Model 1 could turn the drive on and
off directly.
20 Jun
20 Jun
2:48 p.m.
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Scott Stevens wrote:
A somewhat 'crude' but simple thing you can
try is to listen to the
audiotape sound of the tape you created which you say was successful.
Then listen audibly to the tapes you're trying to recover. If the pitch
seems to match for the most part it isn't a speed problem. If you have
an oscilloscope, look at the amplitude of the signal out of the cassette
drive of the new 'working' tape and compare to the one you're trying to
recover.
As others have suggested, use the simplest tape player you can find.
Noise reduction circuits and other fancy technology will only cause
problems.
I haven't done this, but there are decent tools
nowadays for what could
be called 'high performance audio editing' that you can throw at the
problem, if you use your sound card to digitize the audio to a WAV file.
I use Cool Edit 2000 (much less expensive than full-bore Cool Edit,
probably no longer available) for audio work. There are a LOT of
powerful tools for fiddling with audio now that we have all the
horsepower for DSP that a modern pee-cee provides.
I recommened Total Recorder. It's inexpensive and the folks that develop
it are very nice. They've allowed me to upgrade to new versions without
any additional fee, and they're very responsive through e-mail. I
registered it years ago to use for recording VCF talks but never used it.
I recently started using it to digitize audio tapes and find it very nice
to use.
Somebody should develop an 'audio datacassette
emulator' for the kind of
thing you're trying to do. I have a T/S 1000 that I'd use more if I had
something like that to use with it. Ideally it would even have a
'remote on' input, i.e. the TRS-80 Model 1 could turn the drive on and
off directly.
I have a device that you plug inline between the tape player and the
computer. You then turn up the volume all the way on your tape player and
it normalizes the tones so that your computer gets a perfect read
everytime. I forget what it's called but I'll check it out later today
and report back. It's specifically for the TRS-80 so I don't know if it
would work on every computer with different encoding schemes..
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
21 Jun
21 Jun
7:28 p.m.
On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:48:16 -0700 (PDT)
Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote:
Cool Edit has the feature of allowing you to 'zoom in' all the way to
individual samples and 'rubber band edit' any individual sample you
want. I've used it to edit out 'pops' in LP recordings. You can just
grab the few offending samples in a 'pop' in the audio waveform and
smooth them down to the waveform they're interfering with. It's the
audio equivalent of a pixel-level bitmap editor. I have Total Recorder
too, but have always thought of it as much more limited.
On Sat, 18 Jun 2005, Scott Stevens wrote:
The 'fancy technology' I suggested was an oscilloscope. I don't see how
just using the cheapest garage sale tape player you can find is a better
technical approach than actually looking at the waveforms coming out of
the various cheap-garage-sale tape players you've rounded up. Looking
for clipping and comparing the pulsewidths of the signal on an accurate
time base should clear up a lot.
A somewhat 'crude' but simple thing you
can try is to listen to the
audiotape sound of the tape you created which you say was
successful. Then listen audibly to the tapes you're trying to
recover. If the pitch seems to match for the most part it isn't a
speed problem. If you have an oscilloscope, look at the amplitude
of the signal out of the cassette drive of the new 'working' tape
and compare to the one you're trying to recover.
As others have suggested, use the simplest tape player you can find.
Noise reduction circuits and other fancy technology will only cause
problems.
I haven't
done this, but there are decent tools nowadays for what
could be called 'high performance audio editing' that you can throw
at the problem, if you use your sound card to digitize the audio to
a WAV file.
I use Cool Edit 2000 (much less expensive than full-bore Cool Edit,
probably no longer available) for audio work. There are a LOT of
powerful tools for fiddling with audio now that we have all the
horsepower for DSP that a modern pee-cee provides.
I recommened Total Recorder. It's inexpensive and the folks that
develop it are very nice. They've allowed me to upgrade to new
versions without any additional fee, and they're very responsive
through e-mail. I registered it years ago to use for recording VCF
talks but never used it. I recently started using it to digitize audio
tapes and find it very nice to use. 
7:38 p.m.
A somewhat 'crude' but simple thing you can
try is to listen to the
audiotape sound of the tape you created which you say was
successful. Then listen audibly to the tapes you're trying to
recover. If the pitch seems to match for the most part it isn't a
speed problem. If you have an oscilloscope, look at the amplitude
of the signal out of the cassette drive of the new 'working' tape
and compare to the one you're trying to recover.
As others have suggested, use the simplest tape player you can find.
Noise reduction circuits and other fancy technology will only cause
problems.
just using the cheapest garage sale tape player you
can find is a better
technical approach than actually looking at the waveforms coming out of
the various cheap-garage-sale tape players you've rounded up. Looking
for clipping and comparing the pulsewidths of the signal on an accurate
time base should clear up a lot.
I would agree that looking at the signal (and looking at the signal 'as
far into the computer as possible' on machines where it's not all hidden
inside a ULA -- for example the output of the comparator that produces a
TTL-level signal) is well worth doing. It's much easier to put things
right when you have evidence as to what's wrong!
-tony
23 Jun
23 Jun
8:02 p.m.
On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:38:28 +0100 (BST)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
The 'fancy technology' I suggested was an oscilloscope. I don't see
how
I think you've misunderstood the message. I think Sellam was refering
to 'fancy technology' inside the tape player -- things like noise
reduction circuits. You want a player without anything like that.
I understood that. Using a 'cheap' mono cassette recorder with
automatic level control and brute plain electronics is well known enough
that I'm suprised that anybody wouldn't know it. I just didn't think it
was a 'cureall' comment to say 'just use a cheap tape recorder.'
There's a lot more you can do, and Sellam's comment seemed dismissive.
A somewhat
'crude' but simple thing you can try is to listen to
the audiotape sound of the tape you created which you say was
successful. Then listen audibly to the tapes you're trying to
recover. If the pitch seems to match for the most part it isn't
a speed problem. If you have an oscilloscope, look at the
amplitude of the signal out of the cassette drive of the new
'working' tape and compare to the one you're trying to recover.
As others have suggested, use the simplest tape player you can
find. Noise reduction circuits and other fancy technology will
only cause problems.
24 Jun
24 Jun
11:28 a.m.
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, Scott Stevens wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 01:38:28 +0100 (BST)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I think you've misunderstood the message. I think Sellam was refering
to 'fancy technology' inside the tape player -- things like noise
reduction circuits. You want a player without anything like that.
I understood that. Using a 'cheap' mono cassette recorder with
automatic level control and brute plain electronics is well known enough
that I'm suprised that anybody wouldn't know it. I just didn't think it
was a 'cureall' comment to say 'just use a cheap tape recorder.'
There's a lot more you can do, and Sellam's comment seemed dismissive.
It wasn't meant to be dismissive, but a step in the right direction. I
didn't know what you were using, and just wanted to be sure of that.
Perhaps I shot from the hip. It isn't the first time.
Many people never used cassettes for program storage, so it might not be
too obvious that a modern day player with Dolby noise reduction or what
not might actually be hampering a tape load.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
> A somewhat 'crude' but simple thing you
can try is to listen to
> the audiotape sound of the tape you created which you say was
> successful. Then listen audibly to the tapes you're trying to
> recover. If the pitch seems to match for the most part it isn't
> a speed problem. If you have an oscilloscope, look at the
> amplitude of the signal out of the cassette drive of the new
> 'working' tape and compare to the one you're trying to recover.
As others have suggested, use the simplest tape player you can
find. Noise reduction circuits and other fancy technology will
only cause problems.
The 'fancy technology' I suggested was an oscilloscope. I don't see
how 
20 Jun
20 Jun
3:58 p.m.
On 18 Jun, 2005, at 18:44, Gary Sparkes wrote:
Also - would just recording the programs as wav files work well?
I think digitizing the tape at a high quality would be a good idea. You
could the use signal processing software to remove the effects of
fading, wow, flutter and other analogue mishaps.
Then you could output the result to another tape, or use the analog
audio output of whatever computer you cleaned it on as your casette
simulator.
--
-bv
18 Jun
18 Jun
6:33 p.m.
I'm having a hell of a time getting any program to load, so far I've been
Totally unsuccessful.
Anyone have any tips or advice they can throw at me?
Would love to hear anything at all :)
I've never used a ZX81 (or similar), but some tips that have worked on
other machines and which might help
A cheap mono cassette recorder is better than a hi-fi stereo one (!).
Try using fress batteries (or a good, regulated, bench supply) to power
the recoerder, not the built-in mains PSU. The latter can cause hum on
the output which causes problems
For much the same reason, keep the recorder away from the TV set or
monitor (particulalry away from the side where the flyback transformer is).
Make sure the heads are clean. Clean them again. And, for that matter,
demagnetise them.
Connect only the 'ear' lead for loading (and only the aux or mic lead for
saving). With some computers and some recorders you can get a feedback
loop if both are connected, leading to a nice oscillation on top of the
wanted signal.
Try various volume settings, of course. If you have a tone control, turn
it to maximum (at least to start with).
-tony
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