Is this doable?

[Lord Thag]

Sorry if this sounds newbieish, but I'm still leaning all the ins and outs of my commodore stuff. Here's the deal. I'm going to eventually have a buddy of mine make one of those pc-vic/64 cables, but in the meantime, I'd still like to play games on the vic. Here's what i'm thinking: I'll use the programs in the sticky up top to convert the .prg files to wav format and record 'em on tape, and then load them on the vic. I know I can do that.

The question is, can I then save the (loaded) tape files onto disk? If so, how would I do that? Is it just a standard commodore disk save or do I have to do something esoteric and tricky to boot?

Thanks in advance.

[carlsson]

Usually you can save a program you have loaded. I believe Basic needs room for the file name somewhere, and if the program takes up all the memory, you may get ?OUT OF MEMORY when you try to save. If that happens, I believe you can borrow some memory from screen memory by POKE 56,31:CLR (usually 30). This may only happen when you save to tape though?

I still don't know a good file copier which handles both tape and disk.

[Lord Thag]

Thanks! I'll give it a go this evening and see what happens.

[Schema]

From the PET FAQ:

http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/PETx/petfaq.html

HOW CAN I GET PET TAPE PROGRAMS TO DISK?

Again you can do LOAD and SAVE as I mentioned or use a handy little utility I
had discovered for the 64. This program will automatically LOAD each file off
of tape and subsequently SAVE it to disk (device number 8 ) and continue until
you stop it (or a disk error occurs when it attempts to save a file with
the same name as one already on disk, disk full, or end of tape.)

Here is the listing (remember this is written for the Commodore 64):

5 rem tape2disk
10 for i=53181 to 53247:read a:poke i,a:next i
20 print "[clr][down][down][down]tape to disk transfer program!"
30 print"[down]insert formatted disk in drive 8."
40 print"[down]insert tape, rewind and then press play.[down]"
50 sys 53181
100 data 169,1,162,1,160,1,32,186,255,169,0,162,65,160,3,32,189,255
110 data 169,0,32,213,255,169,8,162,8,160,255,32,186,255,169,20,162
120 data 65,160,3,32,189,255,173,61,3,141,251,0,173,62,3,141,252,0
130 data 169,251,174,63,3,172,64,3,32,216,255,76,189,207

Type this in, SAVE it (don't want to type it in again, right?), put a blank
formatted disk in drive 8, type RUN. If everything is working the messaage
will display and the computer will now ask you to press PLAY on tape, put in
a cassette, rewind if necessary, and press PLAY. Let it run through the tape
(this could take an hour or more if it is a long tape). Reset the computer
and load the disk directory. You should now have the tape programs on the
disk, note that they are all padded with extra spaces, you will need to use a
disk or directory editor to "fix" the file names.

[carlsson]

Cute routine. Too bad it is not completely relocatable: JMP $CFBD, i.e. restart the program. So, the load address when one loads a program (from tape?) ends up in zero page address $FB-$FC ? I had no idea.

Since the VIC has BASIC ROM in the area where C64 (and PET??) has RAM, I relocated the routine to $02A1 and optimized three bytes:

Code: Select all

10 DATA169,1,170,168,32,186,255,169,0,162,65,160,3,32,189,255
20 DATA169,0,32,213,255,169,8,170,160,255,32,186,255,169,20,162,65
30 DATA160,3,32,189,255,169,251,174,63,3,172,64,3,32,216,255,76,161,2
40 FORI=673TO724:READA:POKEI,A:NEXT

[Lord Thag]

Thanks for the tips, but I seem to be having a problem. Every time I copy a wav file to tape and try to load it, I get an 'Out of Memory' error. This is using unexpanded vic programs on a vic with no expansion ram plugged in. Is it just a bad tape deck, or am I doing something wrong?

[carlsson]

Your azimuth angle (the angle of the R/W head) may be out of alignment, or different from the recorded source. There is a small hole drilled on top of a screw on 1530's. Normally it is not recommended to change the angle, but I believe if you get ?OUT OF MEMORY almost as soon as the program is found, it could be a sign of this problem.

Maybe the recording volume was too high or too low?

[Lord Thag]

Your azimuth angle (the angle of the R/W head) may be out of alignment, or different from the recorded source. There is a small hole drilled on top of a screw on 1530's. Normally it is not recommended to change the angle, but I believe if you get ?OUT OF MEMORY almost as soon as the program is found, it could be a sign of this problem.

Hmm. I might try that, but I have three tape drives and they all load my regular vic tapes fine. It's only the newly recorded tapes that don't work. I think it's the old tape recorder I have. I'll hunt around and see if I can't find another one. Thanks for the tips!