game collection for cassette? - (several games on a single cassette)

eto · 19:30, 13 April 23

I was wondering if there is a game collection which I can copy on one or two cassettes?

A friend of mine found his 464 in his attic and wanted to give it a go but he has no more cassettes.

I am aware of CDT collections, I was just wondering if there is maybe a prebuilt collection which I can copy directly to a e.g. 90 min cassette and have a few games on cassette then.

SkulleateR · 22:46, 13 April 23

Never seen one ...

You can of course just convert some CDT to WAV and put them in one big WAV (Audacity is a good start) and fill them up till 90 minutes and write that back to tape

eto · 00:08, 02 February 24

So if no compilation exists, I will make my own ;-)

I spent a bit of time to put as many games as possible on a tape. I saved as much space as I could, e.g. I removed loading screens or compressed (ZX0) the binaries. of course unless the version I found was already perfectly optimized. Sure, some might not agree to remove loading screens - but the goal here was to get as much stuff on a tape as possible - and reduce loading times.

Overall there will be over 50 games that fit on two 60 minutes cassettes (30 minutes per side). I chose that size as they are easy to get in new even today.

1984 and 1985 attached to this post...

The contents are no CDTs but WAVs and they are supposed to be copied to real cassettes.

eto · 00:10, 02 February 24

1986 and 1987

eto · 00:14, 02 February 24

And if you have 90 minutes cassettes, here some additional stuff for the previous collections. I haven't tested those games, I hope they also work fine.

eto · 08:45, 02 February 24

To be precise: This collection was made to make real cassettes. It is not meant for emulation. CDTs are much more handy for that.

To get the WAVs on cassette you need is a Laptop/PC, tape recorder, audio cable (to connect both), cassettes - and time.

Any audio player on the Laptop will do, as long as it supports Playlists. Make sure to deactivate any equalizer or sound driver "enhancements".

Try with a a subset of games first. Check out which volume gives you the best results. I did not properly check that and then had 2 cassettes which did not work well. After setting the volume to the right level (in my case 70%) the results were perfect.

Once this is done, the rest is straight forward. Put all WAVs for a side in a playlist. Press record on the tape drive and then play on the audio player software.

cwpab · 11:17, 02 February 24

This is a cool idea, but I humbly question the art choice, which makes it look like a cheap music cassette from a gas station.

ZorrO · 11:38, 02 February 24

What speed did you use, 3000bd, 3600bd, other?

abalore · 13:34, 02 February 24

Quote from: eto on 19:30, 13 April 23I was wondering if there is a game collection which I can copy on one or two cassettes?

A friend of mine found his 464 in his attic and wanted to give it a go but he has no more cassettes.

I am aware of CDT collections, I was just wondering if there is maybe a prebuilt collection which I can copy directly to a e.g. 90 min cassette and have a few games on cassette then.

Take into account that big cassettes like 90 min stress the CPC mechanics more. I have seen some CPCs that can move normal game tapes but no big ones.

eto · 16:38, 02 February 24

Quote from: cwpab on 11:17, 02 February 24This is a cool idea, but I humbly question the art choice, which makes it look like a cheap music cassette from a gas station.

To be 100% honest: After spending SO many days on the content, I did absolutely no longer care about the packaging ;-)

This was done as a personal project and for me it's good enough. But it would be great if someone wants to improve that ;-) Just keep in mind, it should be something that can be printed on a normal printer.

eto · 16:41, 02 February 24

Quote from: abalore on 13:34, 02 February 24Take into account that big cassettes like 90 min stress the CPC mechanics more. I have seen some CPCs that can move normal game tapes but no big ones.

I made collections that properly fit on 60min cassettes. Mostly because I did not even find new 90min cassettes.

eto · 16:41, 02 February 24

Quote from: ZorrO on 11:38, 02 February 24What speed did you use, 3000bd, 3600bd, other?

2000

ZorrO · 19:06, 02 February 24

I'm surprised that so many games fit into such a slow pace. But maybe those old games didn't take up much space.
Recording at 3000bd for 60 minutes will allow you to record as much as recording at 2000bd in 90 minutes.

eto · 21:06, 02 February 24

Quote from: ZorrO on 19:06, 02 February 24I'm surprised that so many games fit into such a slow pace. But maybe those old games didn't take up much space.
Recording at 3000bd for 60 minutes will allow you to record as much as recording at 2000bd in 90 minutes.

As I said, I put a lot of effort in reducing the size as much as possible. I removed loading screens and I packed the binaries with ZX0 compression. This often reduced the size of the original by 50% and more. With the result that many games load in less than 2 minutes and all of them in less than 4 minutes.

2000 baud is very reliable and even works well if the tape drive is not perfectly adjusted. I'm not sure if that will also be the case if I record with 3000 baud.

ZorrO · 23:53, 02 February 24

It sounds like you did a great job.

My friends who had 464 claimed that speed of 3600 is more unreliable and requires reversing some blocks, but 3000 is still Ok.

pelrun · 07:00, 03 February 24

If they're intended to be saved to physical cassettes, do they have the proper pre-emphasis applied? I've not found a CDT tool that does it when generating WAV, because the primary use is playing directly into a computer, but it's not optimal for tape recording.

ZorrO · 11:08, 03 February 24

From tape 3000bd is save speed. Straight from MP3 player can be even 20 000bd, because they don't humming.

eto · 11:57, 03 February 24

Quote from: pelrun on 07:00, 03 February 24If they're intended to be saved to physical cassettes, do they have the proper pre-emphasis applied?

I have no idea. I never dealt with CDTs. I created the compressed binaries from disk versions in Winape, then saved it to "tape", which creates the WAVs you can find in the attachments. Those are played back with WinVNC on e.g. a Laptop which is connected with a tape recorder. The final tapes worked flawlessly so far on any 464 with working tape drive.

pelrun · 12:32, 03 February 24

In that case it probably has the pre-compensation (sorry, had the wrong term before) applied, since the CPC firmware does it, and WinAPE is directly converting the output from the emulation to an audio file.

Anyway, it's not like it won't work without it, it just makes the playback from tape closer to the ideal waveform and so it's more reliable.

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game collection for cassette? - (several games on a single cassette)