archive.worldofdragon.org

Hello everyone!

I've been working for some time on a new tool to help me fix rebel Dragon tapes.

As it's working pretty nice for me, I thougth it was about time to share it with you.

Windows binaries can be downloaded here.

I haven't had time to write some documentation for the program, but should be fairly easy to understand and use. Of course, any question or feedback is appreciated!

You start by loading a wav file and adjusting the pulse parameters. Once you get most pulses right, you can use the "Go to error" button to go to the next unknown or damaged pulse. Pulses always go in pairs, so two '1' pulses make a full '1' waveform.

The program allows you to click on any pulse and change it's type, delete it, or add new pulses to the left or right of it.

As the task of repairing a tape can take a loooooooong time, you can save your progress as a 'project' file, that allows you to continue working were you left it.

Finally, you can decode the tape blocks to check if they are ok, and export the result as a .cas or .wav file.

You'll find attached screenshots of the program running on Windows, MacOSX and Linux. I'd like to take my time to clean the code a bit before making it available.

I hope you like it!

I've had a quick play and I love it! Looking forward to trying this out properly.

ps. I like the cheeky chappie in the corner

Great job!.
Thank you.

Regards.
Marcelo

Really great tool - just used it to rescue Deadwood by A&F. The only copy I have would not convert cleanly and I ended up doing lots of stuff to it to get the copy that is in the archive today. Using this tool I was able to recover the full game.

I did run into a couple of issues with the tool, that may not be easy to explain - but I was able to work round the problem by saving the project and manually editing the save file.

The issue is when there is a severe sound dropout that covers more than one "0/1 bit where the wave does not cross the threshold at all, the tool would not let me insert the extra data using the GUI (well I think it did insert, but it didn't display it properly as it could not detect the rise/fall boundaries to align to).... Locating the same area in the save file and inserting the extra data works well as I was able to manually set the boundary values to fit into the data set.

Now comes one of the magic trick of this tool.

Can you please send me your wav and project files so I can take a look at the dropout area? That way I can check it myself and update the tool.

Thanks for trying it!

Will do - am working on another one I have saved for this..... A pre-release version of BackTrack by Incentive. Being pre-release (and marked as such) it was not "mastered", so only recorded using standard equipment so the quality is really poor. So far so good, but its a big tape to do and its going to take a long time.... Already spend ages playing with the thresholds to capture the majority of the data correctly, now just got to deal with the ones that are in error.

Ooooooh! Backtrack pre-release!

Definitely worth the time! Tell me if I can help you in any way.

Attached is the Deadwood WAV - dropout is in the one of the last two blocks and the fully working CAS file.

*Now with the correct CAS file

Hi Simon!

The cas file seem to small to be a valid cas file (less than 1kb!), dis you upload the right file?

Really liking this tool. I have now uploaded a few more restored games that were not in the archive.... I have had the WAV files sitting around for a few years.... The Backtrack Pre-release is still not working, the quality of the tape is very poor and even with this tool its not obvious how to fix the CRC error(s)...but I'm still working on it.