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General Category => General Discussion - Introductions => Topic started by: Brundij on 01:07, 10 December 19

Title: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 01:07, 10 December 19
Hello forum!
I'm just a regular guy with basically zero knowledge about programming that recently felt the urge (once more) to grab a CPC emulator and replay some of the games I owned when I was a kid.
The reason I decided to join the forum after years of lurking from time to time when the retro fever came back, is that some weeks ago I watched a video on Youtube about a guy that used to make tapes containing only loading screens, that the Spectrum would load one after another as in a slideshow. A quite slow one :D
I always liked or I should say learned to like the loading proccess of games on tape, even when I was a kid, the first time I saw a commercial game loading in my CPC was quite stunning. I was used to the standard loading routine based on blocks. So when I saw the borders flashing in colors ( it was a Dinamic loader ) reacting to the sound of the tape and after a while the "whole" screen filled with a picture it was impressive.
So this time I decided to make my own slideshow tapes.
I mentioned I have no idea about programming, not even basic, so what I do is a very simple loader that sets the inks and border colors, then with load"!" the screen loads and with run"!" the tape keeps running so it loads the next loader, the screen, and so on.
The screen just loads the standard way, though I learned that with CDT Master it's possible to create a screen file with only 2 blocks being the second a long one.
The only issue is of course, that the cpc standard loading routines doesn't have the border effects when loading, so i tried to find stuff about loaders, and how they worked, and man, I never imagined it would be so complicated. For someone like me that has 0 backgound in this world of programming everything sounds too arcane and obscure :D
So luckily in this searching about information somehow found the Java CPC emulator which with the option of "Drawing stripes on border" it emulates the effect of a turbo loader whatever it's loading so it almost feels like I'm running the slideshow on a professional loader.
But I'm curious about if it would be possible to do a slideshow turbo loader. I found turbo loaders in assembler that can be used to load games with their respective loading screens, but even with comments in the code, assembler is like chinese to me, I have no clue of what I'm looking at. So I wonder if it would be possible to do that, and if so how the loader would do to know which inks are used in each screen, or they have to be set like in basic (each screen would have its own turbo loader)
Also I know there are tons of utilities for transferring archives from disc to tape, but as far as I know they always convert archives into the standard blocks routine. Are there tools that allow to create a Speedlock or another kind of turbo file?
Anyways I should stop already, It's been enough textwall.
I leave here a sample of what I mean by a slideshow tape. It's a CDT with 3 pictures I made some time ago that I converted with Java CPC paint.
Thanks for reading!


Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 21:07, 13 December 19
Well, for those who enjoy and find the beeps, bleeps and scratches coming from data tapes relaxing may find this fun.
Here are the first 5 CDT's I made with loading screens from games.
Each one contains 10 loading screens. There's no particular order or theme, just nostalgic reasons or I think the screens looks nice or it's original or weird.I tried to recreate the original loading baud rate if possible. (not on many) I didn't own or played most of the CPC games in the day, and some screens are from games released as far as I know on disk only, or have peculiar loading routines that can't be mimicked this way so most of them will load at 2000 bauds.
I tried also to recreate the original loading routine if possible. The screens load the standard way, but between block header and data it's possible to add pure data blocks, pulse tones and binary files with random data that the standard loading routine will ignore, or mix headers and data from identical files saved in different baud rates, so if you hear Speedlock pure data blocks and uncommon bleeps, it's just stuff I added for fun  ;D Due to my absolute lack of knowledge in the matter I cannot include any cool loader, so if like me you want bars in the border use Java CPC emulator (the only I know that includes this feature) and check "Draw stripes on border" option.
Tapes 1 and 2 won't pause the cassette deck after loading a screen, but there's a pause block of 6 seconds + the next loader loading time wich is enough time to pause the deck manually if wanted.
Happy taping!
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Gryzor on 10:15, 16 January 20
Eheheh working on an Excel sheet on the left half of my monitor while loading the tape on the right half :D
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Skunkfish on 12:27, 16 January 20
If you're into tape loading then make sure you check out the demo Breaking Baud if you haven't already:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62934
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Gryzor on 14:26, 16 January 20
Oh yes that's a fantastic and very, very original demo!!
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 01:13, 23 January 20
Heh glad that someone likes it. Since I posted the last time I made like 16 more tapes and a few compilations of screens of spanish studios, ( Dinamic, Opera, Topo...) so if you are interested let me know and I'll post them all.
Quote from: Skunkfish on 12:27, 16 January 20
If you're into tape loading then make sure you check out the demo Breaking Baud if you haven't already:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62934 (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62934)

Yeah I knew that one already. Very impressive work. I wish there'd be more demos of this kind.
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 08:39, 23 January 20
I created a small video  ;)

https://vimeo.com/386662346 (https://vimeo.com/386662346)
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Gryzor on 10:11, 23 January 20
Screeching bliss.
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 20:52, 23 January 20
Well, Here are the next 5 tapes I made. Extreme on volume 9 has a wrong colour. Dark green (9) should be dark red (3)
I never thought this would be worth of a video :D
I wish Retro Virtual Machine would simulate the loading border effect. It seems to be the perfect kind of emulator to load tapes just for the sake of it. I hope they add it in the future.
Happy taping!
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 21:12, 15 April 20
Hello again.
Here are the next 5 tapes with loading screens and as bonus, a compilation of the screens of the games released or published by Dinamic which I think are among the best ones made for the CPC (Not all but the majority)
Hope this helps to endure the lockdown a bit.
Happy taping!
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: trocoloco on 05:00, 16 April 20
 :o  Wow that is quite a lot of work, I just love the dedication you've put into arranging all those images in one CDT. It would take ages to load the Dinamic tape, so many images. Te lo has currado!  :)
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 20:23, 26 April 20
Hello again bleep lovers.
Here are the first 5 slideshow tapes again and the Dinamic collection one, but this time with a nice pro loader that trocoloco kindly modified to load multiple screens. It's a modification over the already modified Topo loader, by Arnoldemu.

Credits for the Dinamic tape goes to trocoloco, which also added a nice Dinamic logo screen at the beginning.

Hope you like it and happy taping!



Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 00:16, 29 April 20
Here are the next remade 6 to 10 tapes.
BONUS: Loading Screens from IBER, a spanish company with only 7 titles in its catalog. Most of them (6 I think) spectrum ports. Even the screens are ported form spectrum excepting the last one. Yes even the only mode 0 one is a badly coloured spectrum screen. Their games were meh and of doubtful taste excepting maybe Casanova which was originally from Topo software. Enjoyable in its cheesiness.
Happy taping.
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: XeNoMoRPH on 14:03, 29 April 20
https://vimeo.com/413109375
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 14:30, 29 April 20
Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 14:03, 29 April 20
https://vimeo.com/413109375 (https://vimeo.com/413109375)
Certainly the only good thing about Iber was the awesome cover art by Juan Gimenez in four of their games. Casanova, Toi Acid Game, Defcon 1 and Ke Rulen los Petas. Among other spanish (generally better) games of its time.
Sadly passed away at 76 in April 3rd of Covid -19. Rest in Peace.
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 17:36, 02 May 20
Incoming tapes 11 to 15.
Enjoy and Happy taping!
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 22:19, 29 May 20
Hey it's been a while.Here are 5 more CDT's
Happy Taping

Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 16:45, 16 November 20
I haven't post anything in a long time and I've been doing a lot of CDT's wth screens I didn't post in this forum, so here is what I've done so far. It's a lot of links this time so if I'm breaking any forum rule let me know asap. Basically all the CDT's I've made so far. Up to nº 84 and compilations of companies and themes. I include the ones I already posted, for downloading convenience.Archive names are in spanish but I don't think it'll be a big problem, just in case: Pantallas de carga = Loading screens. Happy Taping!!
PS: To edit this was a pain. Somehow pressing enter not always goes to the next line, kind of fixed it using the sorted list option but still it doesn't work right all the time. It keeps messing up colours and spacing.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/oai28m9a485sw0z/Pantallas_de_Carga_hasta_86.txt/file (http://www.mediafire.com/file/oai28m9a485sw0z/Pantallas_de_Carga_hasta_86.txt/file)  Text file with the screens list up to nº 86COMPANIES COMPILATIONS:THEMATIC COMPILATIONS:
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Skunkfish on 16:20, 17 November 20
Wow, what an incredible effort. Thank you!

I had to have a look at the 'Not CPC Games' screens first - it was awesome to see some of those, the Doom ones were particularly impressive (and I think the last one was Borderlands?).
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 16:40, 17 November 20
Thanks for your words. Yeah Doom ones look really nice in mode 0. These ones were one of the first ones I tried to convert and I'm sure they'd look a bit better if I'd do it now. And yep last one is Borderlands 1. Most of these screens are just original converted covers or title pics, while others are remade moving elements of the original image to better fit CPC resolution or adding a logo  E.g. in Not CPC 2: Downwell, Slay the Spire, Bayonetta or Darkest Dungeon. A few times images are made from scratch like a collage.
Title: Re: Slideshows on Tape
Post by: Brundij on 18:32, 19 November 20
Added CDT's 85 and 86 to the list, updated txt file and added "No CPC 5" to the thematic compilations
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