Renaming the downloads !

[rolfmichelsen]

That's why I would prefer a page in the wiki with precise instructions.

Supported! I'm definitively in favor of doing a small effort to make it easy for as many as possible to contribute tapes without inventing the wheel themselves. A simple howto covering everything from connecting the cassette deck to a PC, recommendations for sampling software and settings and then tools with concrete examples to "fine tune" the recordings would be great. It should fit right next to the section on tape and disk preservation on the wiki.

I have limited experience with tape conversion myself since more or less my entire software collection was converted to floppies sometime back in the 80s...

-- Rolf

[Alastair]

Do you want an FTP account so you can manage the downloads section?

I'll have to think about that.

As for what testing I have done so far, I have file compared my uploads against those in the downloads section and found no identical cassette image, thus answering my earlier question. When I get the time I will test all of my uploaded files on a real Dragon 32.

[Sarah]

Here is one pragmatic suggestion for creating CAS files with the correct byte leaders:

1. Start up xroar
2. Press CTRL+L and select a CAS file with or without the correct byte leaders
3. CLOADM
4. To find start address: PRINT PEEK(487)*256+PEEK(488)
5. To find end address: PRINT PEEK(126)*256+PEEK(127)
6. To find exec address: PRINT PEEK(157)*256+PEEK(158)
7. Press CTRL+W to save to a new cassette image
8. CSAVEM"FILENAME",START,END,EXEC (then press F12 to speed it up)

That's quite a lot of work (and only possible with a subset of software that doesn't autorun or use memory that would be corrupted by loading it that way).

Whenever I've wanted to add or remove leader bytes, I simply opened the CAS file directly in a hex editor and inserted or deleted as many "UUUUUUUU"s as desired!

Just takes a moment, although sometimes the data isn't correctly byte aligned and then it's better/more consistent to use $AA instead of "U" ($55) but fixing the byte alignment might be preferred.

PS. If I recall correctly you also need to subtract 1 at step 5.

[geirhovland]

Please note that xroar may also modify leader bytes (U) between the data blocks, not only the initial ones.

I have my entire collection on disks, and I use the xroar approach to convert from VDK to CAS files. The autorun and copy protection problems were fixed at the time when I converted from tape to disk back in the 80s. When loading from DragonDos, the corresponding start,end and exec addresses are: (1618-1619), (1620-1621) and (1622-1623).

I think the benefit of using the xroar approach, is that you can be quite certain that the CAS file would work on a real Dragon when converted back to WAV. When editing the CAS file manually in a text editor, the CAS file may work on an emulator, but verification would still be required to check that it would load on a real Dragon.

[Alastair]

Simon,
the following that are already in the downloads section all work on a real D32 and just need their file names changed (note the change in some of the years, and I'm assuming that if it loads then it qualifies for the ! flag):

dominoes (198x)(oasis software)[u].zip -> dominoes (198x)(oasis software)[!].zip

donkey king (198x)(microdeal)[u].zip -> donkey king (1983)(microdeal)[!].zip

drone datatank (198x)(cable software)[u](side a).zip -> drone datatank (1983)(cable software)[!](side a).zip

fishy business (198x)(salamander software)[u].zip -> fishy business (1983)(salamander software)[!].zip

football manager (198x)(addictive software)[u].zip -> football manager (1984)(addictive software)[!].zip

golf (198x)(salamander software)[u].zip -> golf (1982)(salamander software)[!].zip

java star (198x)(shards software)[u].zip -> the mystery of the java star (1984)(shards software)[!].zip

north sea oil (198x)(shards software)[u].zip -> north sea oil (1984)(shards software)[!].zip

othello (198x)(oasis software)[u].zip -> othello (1983)(oasis software)[!].zip

perseus & andromeda (198x)(channel 8 software)[u].zip -> perseus & andromeda (1984)(channel 8 software)[!].zip

In addition, I have revised some of the text files that appear in the zip files. You may want to replace the relevant text files in the following:

colossal cave (1986)(cowen software ltd)[!].zip
donkey king (1983)(microdeal)[!].zip (after renaming)
drone datatank (1983)(cable software)[!](side a).zip (after renaming)
total eclipse v1.3 (1985)(fenmar)[!].zip