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General Category => General Discussion - Introductions => Topic started by: Zoe Robinson on 17:14, 26 November 14

Title: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Zoe Robinson on 17:14, 26 November 14
Hi guys,


One of my comics for today has a retro feel to it, what with being about loading software from tape on the CPC. I thought you guys might like it.


All Over The House » The waiting game (http://alloverthehouse.net/comic/the-waiting-game/)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: CraigsBar on 17:19, 26 November 14
Teeheehee :-)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Carnivius on 17:41, 26 November 14
I must have had good tapes.  I'd never seen Read Error B when using them (think only time I ever got a Read Error was in the past year actually when trying alternative methods of loadinng data into the CPC via phones/mp3 players).   Loading times don't seem that long to me, but then I keep busy. I did some press ups waiting for Into the Eagles Nest to load earlier.   :)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: radu14m on 19:32, 26 November 14
really nice :) !!!
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Gryzor on 19:40, 26 November 14
Tee-hee!!! Really nice! Twittered :)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: robcfg on 20:47, 26 November 14
Haahahahahahahaa! Brilliant!  :D
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Zoe Robinson on 21:28, 26 November 14
Thanks, guys. Glad you liked it. :D
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: ervin on 23:31, 26 November 14
Fantastic stuff.
Love your art style - very cool.
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Zoe Robinson on 23:46, 26 November 14
Thank you. I worked hard to develop that style. :)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: arnoldemu on 10:22, 27 November 14
great. made my day.

takes me back to the time when I bought a cassette for £9.99 and I had trouble loading it.
I wasn't going to give up after spending that amount of money  :laugh:
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: TFM on 18:24, 27 November 14
If I would believe in hell, then there would be tapes only!
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: CPC_Fan on 20:35, 27 November 14
I like it  :D
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Bryce on 09:12, 28 November 14
Quote from: TFM on 18:24, 27 November 14
If I would believe in hell, then there would be tapes only!

In hell there are only C64 tapes. :D

Bryce.
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: AMSDOS on 09:36, 28 November 14
I haven't been able to test my Commercial Games on Tape, but know some of my Disc based stuff is corrupt - particularly the Protected stuff and because I'm now in the swing of making CDTs, I'm kind of tempted converting it to WAV on an Audio CD and see how that goes. It should eliminate any Read Errors that might occur with Tape.
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: MaV on 09:50, 28 November 14
I'm not sure tapes would qualify as hell to me.

You see, loading a tape is the kind of relaxing pastime where you go get some coffee (or tea), sit down in front of the screen, look at the screen loading, and listen to the loading sound from the speakers (the reason why my 464+ is mostly unused, as is my C64 datasette, and as would be any other tape loading device where I can't listen to the track).
I expect a state of nirvana as soon as I'm able to listen to the sound and know which values the CPC is currently reading.

Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: arnoldemu on 09:56, 28 November 14
For me it is not hell either, for me it is the same feeling as MaV.

Load the tape, watch the loading bars, the screen displaying. If I have loaded it a few times I recognise each stage and I know when it's about to finish.

Often I would load a tape while reading AA.
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: steve on 10:09, 28 November 14
Are you sure you were not hypnotised by the loading bars into thinking tapes were great. :D
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: arnoldemu on 10:20, 28 November 14
Quote from: steve on 10:09, 28 November 14
Are you sure you were not hypnotised by the loading bars into thinking tapes were great. :D
yeah probably.
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Zoe Robinson on 12:24, 28 November 14
Ah, reading AA while the covertape loaded. That takes me back. :)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Token on 13:31, 28 November 14

I also like tapes. Few minutes is not problem for me and with the majority of old 464 games (which I mainly play) It doesn't feel like a time waster at all. As wrote MaV, it's relaxing.


To me it's even more 8 bits heaven, you never used tape again on 16/32 computers. It has a lot of charm with rasters, sound and mainly how it display the intro pic. Lovely "fx".
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: TFM on 18:18, 28 November 14
Quote from: Bryce on 09:12, 28 November 14
In hell there are only C64 tapes. :D
Bryce.

Sure. Because you will be released to heaven after loading correctly... see takes eternity.  :laugh:


Quote from: Zoe Robinson on 12:24, 28 November 14Ah, reading AA while the covertape loaded. That takes me back. :)

Ah! That's the reason for this tapes having a papermag with them, so you can fill the loading time with doing something of interest.  ;)
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Gryzor on 19:11, 30 November 14
I think everyone who used tapes for games back then still loves them (ok, maybe not Speccy owners). The wait didn't even bother me back in the day. Sure, I was longing for a 6128 which I eventually got and was mesmerised by its loading speed, but I always enjoyed loading a game from tape. What's more, the fact that you invested some time in loading it meant you were more likely to give it a real try instead of tossing it away and loading the next title.

And, still to this day, though my primary CPC is a 6128, when on the PC and I often load tape images, much to the annoyance of the house Lady...
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: AMSDOS on 08:52, 03 December 14
Quote from: MaV on 09:50, 28 November 14
I'm not sure tapes would qualify as hell to me.

You see, loading a tape is the kind of relaxing pastime where you go get some coffee (or tea), sit down in front of the screen, look at the screen loading, and listen to the loading sound from the speakers (the reason why my 464+ is mostly unused, as is my C64 datasette, and as would be any other tape loading device where I can't listen to the track).
I expect a state of nirvana as soon as I'm able to listen to the sound and know which values the CPC is currently reading.


Oddly enough I've got my first CDT with Read Error in it, but it's a BASIC program and I have a program in AA53 designed to Recover as much of the program as possible, but I'll need to type it in to recover the other program, if it was small enough I'd just retype it in, but it's got quite a bit of typing involved.  ;D
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: Bryce on 09:30, 03 December 14
Quote from: AMSDOS on 08:52, 03 December 14

Oddly enough I've got my first CDT with Read Error in it, but it's a BASIC program and I have a program in AA53 designed to Recover as much of the program as possible, but I'll need to type it in to recover the other program, if it was small enough I'd just retype it in, but it's got quite a bit of typing involved.  ;D

Yes, but you can save it on a tape for the next time you need it :)

Bryce.
Title: Re: I made this and thought of you
Post by: AMSDOS on 10:14, 03 December 14
Quote from: Bryce on 09:30, 03 December 14
Yes, but you can save it on a tape for the next time you need it :)

Bryce.


Hmm yeah I forgot about that part, unless the program can be modified to save the recovered file to Disk Image?
Title: Recovering BASIC programs with Read Errors on Emulators
Post by: AMSDOS on 00:41, 23 December 14
Quote from: Bryce on 09:30, 03 December 14
Yes, but you can save it on a tape for the next time you need it :)

Bryce.


I've found a way in Winape where I can load as much of a program as possible with Load. When the programs is loading it appears to be buffered into Memory between &9000 and &A000 depending on how much is loaded in I think (using Debug). That code can be moved, using the Assembler moving that code with LDIR:



org &be80


ld hl, <where the program begins>
ld de,&170 ;; Start of BASIC
ld bc,<length of program : End Address - Start Address>
ldir


ret



in my situation I was having problems loading Block 2, but was loading Block 1 OK, but if a Read Error should occur at the start of the program, then this approach won't help much.


But I'm guessing the Retriever Type-in Program from AA53 has a way of reading Blocks which aren't corrupt, using my approach I'm trying to read in as much of a program hoping the Read Error comes late when loading it and then moving that information where BASIC programs go.


Once in BASIC I can use the Assembler with Winape to copy the BASIC program to there and delete the corrupt lines.
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