How many of CNGSoft's compactages can you fit on a blank tape?

[Shaun M. Neary]

Had fun doing this. Squeezed 68 games on to a C-90 cassette.

[XeNoMoRPH]

that's saving space !!! 

[Gryzor]

Meet you behind the school after day's end?

[GUNHED]

So, how much KB do fit on an 90 Minutes cassette?

[Shaun M. Neary]

Meet you behind the school after day's end?

Don't forget to bring a blank!

[Shaun M. Neary]

So, how much KB do fit on an 90 Minutes cassette?

I didn't count, but you can feel free to check all the sizes on CNGSoft's website and add them all up from the tracklist that I provided.

[tjohnson]

What did you use to transfer them?

[TotO]

Does a 90mn tape do not have a drawback around the mechanism making it forcing at end and the tape slowdown?
If I'm not wrong, the hardware was made for computer cassette that was mainly around 15mn?

[Shaun M. Neary]

What did you use to transfer them?

I converted them to wav file using JavaCPC and then copied them using a USB tape recorder.

Does a 90mn tape do not have a drawback around the mechanism making it forcing at end and the tape slowdown? If I'm not wrong, the hardware was made for computer cassette that was mainly around 15mn?

I've heard this but I've never experienced it. I've been copying stuff on to 60 minute and 90 minute tapes for years for the Amstrad and never had a fail personally.

[TotO]

OK!

[Cholo]

Does a 90mn tape do not have a drawback around the mechanism making it forcing at end and the tape slowdown?
If I'm not wrong, the hardware was made for computer cassette that was mainly around 15mn?

Just like Shaun i also copied files constantly for like 5-7 years straight & never had issues with 60 or 90 mins tapes. Not even above the default baud speeds of 1000 & 2000. Must admit i in general always used 60 min tapes especally when doing the 2500-3000 baud recordings in combination with "quicksaving" the files (quicksaving: instead of saving a 26x blocks of 2k bytes you save one file 2k byte & one long 24k byte one). Amstrad 464's really had an incredible quality tape deck in it. Cant really remember a single time saving/loading went wrong unless there was a physical error on the tape or user errors of cause. But i also always used good brand tapes as you could certainly get some horrible trashbin worth tapes as well. Also only used "normal position" tapes as metallic tapes (like chrome) distort the audio. Trying to remember if we even had 120 mins tapes back then as i cant remember using one.


I do remember the short data tapes like 15 mins too. I mostly remember them from the really early zx81 days. Like the early budding IT stores or music hardware stores would have like a bin of mixed zx80/81 tapes with homeprinted lables. Cant speak for the zx80 but the 81 was certailly a bit more unreliabele when it came to recording & reading back but we also just used some random casette/data recorder so it could have been the recorder. They did have short tapes in the later Amstrad days as well. I did get lured into buying a dozen at rebate price at a the local store. That is where i discovered how apparently useless the c10/C15/C20 tapes was .. for storing real games at least because of how short they are. Wasnt untill later that i got into my brain that ultra short tapes are really usefull for storing a single program that you use a lot. Like i had one with a paint program on both sides, one with a copy program, one with a speech program etc. Quite handy to have easy to access tools without having to dig thru long tapes.


One concern about long tapes isnt just the normal "bit-rot" that is slowly happening over the last 30 years, but i have noticed that longer tapes do tend to last less well like i got a Frankie Goes To Hollywood game tape where the spools/tape has clearly "fallen" aka not kept in place to a point where the tape is damaged & even if you where to open the tape & manually put things it place i doubt it will load without errors. So the short original tapes do have a pro there.


EDIT: and 68 is a really impressive number of games on cassette showing how amazingly compressed the games really are. Also Renegade is a "multiload" so it technically takes up space for 2 games. Had it been normal non-compressed mixed games im guessing you could put on a good dozen games on each side.

[Shaun M. Neary]

EDIT: and 68 is a really impressive number of games on cassette showing how amazingly compressed the games really are. Also Renegade is a "multiload" so it technically takes up space for 2 games. Had it been normal non-compressed mixed games im guessing you could put on a good dozen games on each side.

I ended up making two more of these. The second tape had 71 games on it! 

[tjohnson]

I'll have to try this, I've got quite a few cassette recorders and blank tapes.  I still haven't managed to transfer breaking baud though.

[Shaun M. Neary]

I'll have to try this, I've got quite a few cassette recorders and blank tapes.  I still haven't managed to transfer breaking baud though.

I've done it successfully with one of these.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/5740413?clickSR=slp:term:usb%20cassette:8:232:1

[Gryzor]

I imagine you'd be the king of the schoolyard with a tape like these back in the day

[Shaun M. Neary]

I imagine you'd be the king of the schoolyard with a tape like these back in the day

Knowing me, I'd still be the red headed stepchild for having an Amstrad. Was third popular 8bit here in Ireland.
The 'cool' kids had the C64.

[Gryzor]

Well you'd have been the king here in Greece anyhow

[Shaun M. Neary]

Maybe so, but the collapse of the blank tape industry would have left a dent in the Irish economy, I'd bought so many blanks between 87-91!

[tjohnson]

I've done it successfully with one of these.

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/5740413?clickSR=slp:term:usb%20cassette:8:232:1

Interesting, I've tried with 3 different shoe box cassette machines and still been unable to get past the loader, as soon as it gets to the part where it should start to load the graphics it doesn't.  Maybe I need some better cassettes.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Interesting, I've tried with 3 different shoe box cassette machines and still been unable to get past the loader, as soon as it gets to the part where it should start to load the graphics it doesn't.  Maybe I need some better cassettes.

It's not a standard shoebox recorder though, it has a USB port in it which can play the files from wav and record directly to it. No messing about with volume, tone etc.

[Cholo]

Interesting, I've tried with 3 different shoe box cassette machines and still been unable to get past the loader, as soon as it gets to the part where it should start to load the graphics it doesn't.  Maybe I need some better cassettes.

Are you getting read errors like "Read Error A" or Read Error B" (aka probably just a volume issue) or is the game crashing (aka attempting to load a protected game or motor pause issues)?


Oddly amstrad games should be one of the easiest 8 bit games to load from tape but since the original 464 had motor control (aka can pause while loading) so many things can suddenly go wrong. Even old Amsoft games pause the motor when they draw the into logo, so if you arnt loading the game on a real 464 or a 6128/664 with the correct lead & compatible cassette player (with motor contol aka "ear" plug) thing will go wrong. Also im still puzzled why amstrad released the 464 plus without motor control too .. i mean why release a new Amstrad machine & make it incompatible with 1000s of already released original proteacted games?

[tjohnson]

Neither read error a or b just doesn't start to load the graphics.

[Shaun M. Neary]

Neither read error a or b just doesn't start to load the graphics.

Which games is this happening on for you?

[Cholo]

Ah yes as Shaun mentioned it help a lot if we know the game/file you are trying to tranfter/run.


About the CNG compactages is a bit different as not only is their games heavily compressed but the whole game including the loading screen is contained in the one package so you actually dont see the loading screen untill the whole thing has completely loaded. Also i can hear that the games are recorded with probably a very high 2500-3000 baud & "quicksaving" aka only 2 blocks (one small & one really really long). This works really well & will load really fast in any emulator but the "breakneck" speed may be too fast for transftering onto tape (unless you have the volume 100% correct. Might be worth remaking the tape file to a more human 1000-2000 baud to ensure less things going wrong in a transfer 


EDIT: fun thing to remember that these old amstrad games is compressed on a modern pc with huge ram as the actually compression always takes a huge amount of ram but that decompressing takes much less ram. So these old 8 bit games couldnt actually excist that compressed back in the early 80'ies (well a Atari or Amiga might have done the job). So its a little bit like finally having that hover-scateboard from Back to the future 2 

[Shaun M. Neary]

Ah yes as Shaun mentioned it help a lot if we know the game/file you are trying to tranfter/run.

Exactly, more specifically, what protection the game is using which will provide some pretty useful information.