VIC Tapes

paytonbyrd · Post by **paytonbyrd** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:50 am

I'm sure this is covered somewhere else, but I could use a quick, succinct answer for this: What is the best way to convert VIC-20 tapes into files that can be used from VICE? Also, are there any programs that takes a VIC-20 tape and converts it to a D64 image?

Thanks!

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:27 pm

For first question, I use MTAP to dump cassette to .tap files (which can be opened in VICE.

You can download MTAP from here:

http://markus.brenner.de/

Many commerical games have already been dumped.

Is there something that you are looking for?

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:14 pm

My own solution was WAV2PRG. For most programs it works fine.

Could run into trouble if the program has some form of copy protection.

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:50 pm

I've tried a number of solutions to no degree of success. I finally just plugged a 1541 drive into my Vic 20 and saved the file to there, then transferred it to a disk image via my X1541 cable.

If you want my opinion, leave tape files on tapes. Just not worth the hassle, considering the cheap and abundant 1541's out there. If eslapion and 6502dude could do it, it's because they are better men than I.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:09 pm

I use MTAP with a 1531 and the X1531 cable connected to my 486, and with that about 99% success rate. If it doesn't transfer, then almost certainly the tape's duff...

paytonbyrd · Post by **paytonbyrd** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:12 pm

Is there a version of the X1531 cable for C64/VIC-20 tape drives? The info on Joe Forster's site (and everything else on Google's front page) is for the C16 & plus/4 tape drive.

Is there anyone willing to make one of this cables for me?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 5:13 am

Considering it cost me all of 2 GBP to buy a 1531, then it wasn't much of an expense for me

Plus I was pretty confident it wasn't knackered from overuse, something I would be worried about with a C2N...

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:45 am

There used to be adapters from mini-DIN to card edge (or ther other way around), so I suppose it is a matter of soldering. Would you need a male card edge on the "X1530" cable to connect a tape recorder? Some permanently broken C64 or VIC-20 motherboard might be a donor, if you can't find a clean source or etc your own card edge connector.

Or as Mayhem wrote, get a 1531.

In the mean time, WAV-PRG and Audiotap is a quite useful bundle, in particular as it is open source and internally has support for a few more options than the interface gives way for. I was in contact with the developer a few years ago about that, but we didn't find a solution to my particular issues, whichever they were at that time. As for Andreas Matthies Tape64, I found it required a patch to load PAL VIC-20 programs. NTSC should work out of the box, as the timing constants are much closer to a C64.

paytonbyrd · Post by **paytonbyrd** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:51 am

1531 are anything but plentiful here in the US, and shipping from Europe wouldn't be too pleasant from a cost or time perspective. The only dead system I have is a 128, and I'm not chopping anything off of a 128 board. I guess I'll have to rig up a regular tape recorder through audio input and use wav2prg.