avatar_Novabug

Transferring games to new cassettes, pitfalls and problems.

Started by Novabug, 00:48, 19 May 20

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Novabug

Evening all

I'm currently embarking on a restoration project to get all my damged, failed cassettes to working order again. I have severel methods, but I appear to have come across issues and wondered if anybody has any ideas or advice.

I was using a TZXDuino CDT player to pipe the signal into a tape recorder. I have 2, one small portable and one large professional deck. The second one gives me control over recording volumes and I have found adjusting the distortion and hiss out really improves success rate as I would have thought. However, is the Duino the right thing to use? Would a converted CDT, using CDT to Wav create a more realiable copy? I say this because I cannot get certain games to load of a new recorded cassette. Maybe this is due to Copy protection systems, but it appears wuite random. I cannot get these games to run

Bomb Fusion... Loads first block to pause screen, and never resumes.
Willow Pattern... Fails to catch all the blocks during the beepload.
Technocop... Crashes and resets at load interval (When music is due to play on loading screen)
Bubble bobble... Same as Willow Pattern.
Deliverance... Orignally distortion caused an upset with the Speedlock, but reducing the levels and using the spanish CDT, it now works. UK CDT does not work from recorded cassette.
Bob Winner... Crashes during loading, about 2 minutes in.

Games transferred successfully

Galactic Plague - First time, no issues.
Super Ski
Defenders of the Earth
Road Runner & Wil e Coyote.
Postman Pat
Xevious - A curious one, as this uses Speedlock but is not effected by the hiss and loads fine.

I'm still making my way though the games to restore, but would the Duino be responible for this? Would a converted CDT/WAV create a cleaner recording? Is there a reason or difference between the 2 sources? Trying all these failed games directly into the cpc from the duino, they all load fine apart from Bomb Fusion, which is a weird one.
Sorry for the long post, But Would like any suggestions anyone has to offer.


VincentGR

Try to load the WAVs you produce via CDT2WAV on WinApe.
I think that it might be the same thing, not sure though.

Novabug

Using CDT2WAV is proving more successfull as I have control over the output audio level. Certain games are just impossible it seems
Technocop gets to the music intro, and crashes. all methods and various volume levels used
Bomb Fusion is a weirdest. It will only load from the TZXDuino or CDT2Wav, without a REM controller. If one is connected, it pauses after the first block and never resumes. Any transfer to tape with 3 different CDT rips does not work as this pause always happens. I wonder if there is a bug in the code?

Novabug

Update to my restoring project, Most of the cassettes are now done, with only a few being very tricky to conquer.


Technocop - Musical loader appears to be causing the copy problem. Tried several blank cassettes, 3 tape recorders, cdt2wav, volume settings and more. Nothing works.


Trivial Pursuit - Really annoying. Corrupts the loading screen everytime, and eventually doesn't complete load. Used all types of CDT rips. The single cassette released seems to be the most successful, as that did actually load once.


Bob Winnner - always crashes during load. Tried the same things as Technocop.




dlfrsilver

Hi, you need to use CSW2CDT for CDT reversal back to WAV.


Then, you need to know what you are doing when recording, and also which hardware you use to record back on tape.


This is not an easy thing, i have a friend who is a musician, and he successfully recorded complex protected games from the WAV reverted from CDT.




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