Roland in space tape arrived faulty from ebay BUT saying loading disc :/

Started by mark25810, 11:37, 25 August 21

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mark25810

Hi there i am not sure if this should be in the technical section or the games section.


I have been rebuying my whole amstrad collection again as i had to sell it for money last year.


Anyway i wanted the Roland in space game to go with the roland in time, won one on ebay and it came this morning proceeded to load side 1 and i noticed it stated...loading disc block 1 which was strange...i think it went to block 4 then said ...loading roland in space....anyone else know why a tape should be saying loading disc?


I have never used the disc add-on also played loads of games on tapes on this and never had the load disc issue..plus i got death stalker come this morning too and that loaded fine as normal.


This side of the tape managed to get to the screen asking if using a green screen, then it got to the title loading screen image and the tape continued to load BUT while doing this it was making a high pitched whine and eventually the tape ran out and it stayed on that image loading screen.i pressed buttons to see if the game came on and nope...pressing escape reset the amstrad.


i then tried side 2 and this side also said loading disc and got to block 4 then stated read error b


oddly the 3rd time of trying this side it then stated read error a and b which i have not seen before for 1 side of the tape.


i think the screetching is because the tape itself is damaged? maybe mould or something making it more stiff to go through the tape player....also the spindles seem to not go round as smooth and the timer goes round a tad slower i think.




Sorry i am rambling as this mainly was about the loading disc issue


the seller apologised and gave me a refund and then asked about why it says loading disc.


i expected this to be ok as the inlay and case are new looking and so was the cassette and i see not issues looking at the tape from underneath




Shaun M. Neary

Hi Mark,
I had a look at the CDTview on CPC-Power and apparently "DISC" is normal for that game, the first four blocks are there.
It may have something to do with the NoAMSDOS protection to attempt to prevent transfer to disk?

I'll keep digging around anyway.
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

mark25810

Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 11:48, 25 August 21
Hi Mark,
I had a look at the CDTview on CPC-Power and apparently "DISC" is normal for that game, the first four blocks are there.
It may have something to do with the NoAMSDOS protection to attempt to prevent transfer to disk?

I'll keep digging around anyway.








Thank you, tbh I am not technically minded when it comes to the workings of the amstrad I just play the games so appreciate the help


I did have this game last year and that worked totally fine with no issue with this [size=78%]NoAMSDOS[/size]
[/size]
[/size][size=78%]Tbh I've never heard of that...that's how much I know haha[/size]

Shaun M. Neary

I've had a look at a few games that use NoAMSDOS protection and it looks more like an oversight on the naming convention when the first four blocks were saved out as "DISC".

Looking more like a dead / worn tape more than anything.
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

mark25810

Thank you for this, tbh I assumed it was the tape that was no good with the high pitched whining, the first 20 seconds is ok and then it starts till the very end and then the read error issues on the other side.


More often than not I've had no issues with tapes not working, every now and again or maybe 1 side won't load.


Dissapointing as I wanted this game as it's one of my faves lol


I did get a refund though


It looks totally new Inc the tape also, wonder if it's just been sat a bit too long and in not good atmosphere conditions

Shaun M. Neary

This is going to sound stupidly crazy, but trust me it works.

Tapes get sticky over time and need to be loosened.

So hold on to the tape and when the autumn and winter months come in, stick it into a (preferably clean) sock and put it on the radiator for a few hours, then flip the side over and repeat.

Then pop it into the tape deck and rewind it and fast forward it a couple of times and voila!

I've recovered several game and music cassette tapes this way. :D
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

mark25810

Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 12:08, 25 August 21
This is going to sound stupidly crazy, but trust me it works.

Tapes get sticky over time and need to be loosened.

So hold on to the tape and when the autumn and winter months come in, stick it into a (preferably clean) sock and put it on the radiator for a few hours, then flip the side over and repeat.

Then pop it into the tape deck and rewind it and fast forward it a couple of times and voila!

I've recovered several game and music cassette tapes this way. :D


Great tip I will try this, hope it works thank you

mark25810

Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 12:08, 25 August 21
This is going to sound stupidly crazy, but trust me it works.

Tapes get sticky over time and need to be loosened.

So hold on to the tape and when the autumn and winter months come in, stick it into a (preferably clean) sock and put it on the radiator for a few hours, then flip the side over and repeat.

Then pop it into the tape deck and rewind it and fast forward it a couple of times and voila!

I've recovered several game and music cassette tapes this way. :D








Have you ever loaded roms using one of those car audio cassette adapters and the phone tap loading app...just found that out and i had one and it works a treat and the games look identical too :o never realised till a bit earlier lol


i will still use the tapes i have though and this for games i can not get hold of

Shaun M. Neary

Quote from: mark25810 on 13:28, 25 August 21Have you ever loaded roms using one of those car audio cassette adapters and the phone tap loading app...just found that out and i had one and it works a treat and the games look identical too :o never realised till a bit earlier lol i will still use the tapes i have though and this for games i can not get hold of



You mean tape / disk images, Mark. ROM's for an Amstrad are very different things in that world (usually stores utilities, etc)
I have done it, but some protections can be iffy depending on the volume. Also never convert to mp3, convert to wav instead as the compression can mess with the loading.

My CPC6128 and both my CPC464's have a tape in connector (the latter two were customised) and I load tapes via an SD card based TZXDuino, so there's never any load fails.
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

mark25810

Ah yes tape images, so far I've tried a few images and it works flawless I will do this for games I'd want but are way too expensive for what they are like the Bruce Lee one that goes for stupid money lol

Shaun M. Neary

Yeah greedy opportunists have driven up the prices on practically every format. Covid didn't help either!

I bought a ioad of blank tapes and converted CDT images to wav and used a modern tape recorder with USB input to make custom compilations. In case I ever actually want to use the tape deck. :D
It works quite well, I made a couple of *monster* compilations with CNGSoft's compressed games. Something like 75 games on one C90. :D


Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

mark25810

Quote from: Shaun M. Neary on 15:25, 25 August 21
Yeah greedy opportunists have driven up the prices on practically every format. Covid didn't help either!

I bought a ioad of blank tapes and converted CDT images to wav and used a modern tape recorder with USB input to make custom compilations. In case I ever actually want to use the tape deck. :D
It works quite well, I made a couple of *monster* compilations with CNGSoft's compressed games. Something like 75 games on one C90. :D









That's impressive I had no idea you could do that tbh.


Oh can I ask if ever my tape deck breaks or the tape counter how do those seperate tape deck work that you can use to load tapes instead, I have seen a few on eBay so could get one at some point. Is it just a case of plugging it in to the headphone socket on the amstrad and then just doing everything else as normal but use the seperate tape player instead?

Shaun M. Neary

If you have a CPC664 or CPC6128, you can get a tape lead from retrocomputershack.co.uk and plug in a headphone socket into it. You may need to manually pause in some places if you don't have a tape deck with a remote socket in it.

If you have a CPC464 or any of the plus machines, you need to fit a tape in socket to your device.
More info here, but if you don't know your way around electronics, do what I did and find someone who is!

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/DIY_Plus_Tape_Socket


The headphone socket is sadly just that, outputs to headphones or speakers.
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

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