trouble with old cassettes.

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
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denjerus
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trouble with old cassettes.

Post by denjerus »

So the old speccy + 128K came back from the menders and I have six brief case size cases and several shoe boxes jammed full of all the old games and software that I had collected over the years. The Old Texet CT-600 cassette player is all cleaned up and running but I am having difficulty loading the old cassettes. Some of the tapes are tight and pull the auto stop on the cassette deck and some are not loud enough to load.
So I am looking for solutions (surely not WD40) to help me re-enjoy all those past memories and games.
I also have a number of interfaces for 48K and 128K speccys and wondered if I am on the right site to rediscover what they are and how to use them as my memory has taken a bit of a bashing over these last 30 years.
With the number os software titles I possess, there must be rarities amongst them, where can I find the value of these pieces?
I think that's enogh questions for now. I'll be off to do a bit of research then
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PeterJ
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by PeterJ »

You are welcome to post photos of the interfaces here. Actually it could make a nice quiz!

Tapes do age over time sadly. I tend to use a program called tap2wav (It's in the Fuse utility package) on my PC then play the resulting wav file into the Spectrum to give the real retro experience. There are also a couple of Android apps which do something similar.
hikoki
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by hikoki »

you may want to put your cassettes on the radiator for a while : http://www.zonadepruebas.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=8174
Ralf
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by Ralf »

Unfortunately problems with old cassettes are quite common. After all when they were made nobody cared if they'll work after 30 years ;)

If you just want to load popular games into your real, old Spectrum then you actually have several choices. You can get the games from Internet and load them by some MP3 player or even PC connected to Spectrum. You can also use some more recent interfaces like Divide which load the games instantly from snapshots or tape images.

If you have some really rare games that aren't on WOS/Spectrum Computing, please share them with us here. Just create a .wav file and upload it somewhere and there are people experienced with filterring/adjusting some really bad quality recordings.

As for tape loading I don't know many clever tricks. I somehow managed to do it it in the 80s (play the tape, don't move, don't breath and pray for the best ;) ) but today I'm totally out of the practice.
denjerus
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by denjerus »

Thanks for the responses and all so quick.I was obviously not the only person not interested in the wedding.
The tapes have come in from a colder area so good idea to warm them up and dispell any old condensation in there.
All those interfaces include a Kempston Joystick interface (single) for 48K machine so that will be recycled as my old 48K rubber keyboards sold on ebay as broken or spares. There is a Ram Turbo interface, looks like 2 joysticks and possibly a printer take off under a cover. Ad'ktronics interface that looks like a 2 joystick affair. these ones I have no paperwork or instructions for. Now my Romantic Robot Multiface 128 has instructions as does my Romantic Robot VideoFace. A video digitiser that I used to capture and title videos in the distant past when I travelled the world in the Royal Navy, and shot loads of videos. Not sure I will be using that again with the equipment available on my PC.
One more question.. Is there a catalogue of all the speccy software out there somewhere? There are many thousands available for emulators (hope that's not a bad word here) maybe I haven't looked hard enough.
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1024MAK
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by 1024MAK »

Type the names / manufacturer names into a search engine... Search for pictures...

Mark
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Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb :dance
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1024MAK
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by 1024MAK »

And what is this wedding that you speak of? On second thoughts, don't bother, I'd rather not know. Blooming soap operas...!
:!: Standby alert :!:
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb :dance
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
Ralf
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by Ralf »

Is there a catalogue of all the speccy software out there somewhere?
Yes, just search this site or World of Spectrum (they currently have more downloads than Spectrum Computing).

Maybe you'll soon find that you can find downloads of some rare stuff that nobody ever heard about but can't find some biggest classics. That's because some games are "denied" - copyright holders stated that they don't wish these games to be publicly available and the mentioned websites respect it. In such case you would need to buy the game on auction or... go to some darker corners of the web :twisted:
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1024MAK
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by 1024MAK »

Here's one link :D
And another... ;)
:!: Standby alert :!:
“There are four lights!”
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb :dance
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
denjerus
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Re: trouble with old cassettes.

Post by denjerus »

Thanks again for the info and links to assuage my curiosity. Seems moot now as I got a programme loaded and killed the speccy with a single press of the red button on my multiface 128. The screen went black with a blue surround and would not recover from that state.
Speak again when it gets back from the menders!
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