MatGubbins wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:00 pm
They do work, just needed a bit of tweeking.
As to the game itself, the levels, music and code seem to work fine, completed and messed around with a few levels doing a speed run.
That is a fast turbo loader!!
Thanks, Mat!
This is interesting, as they work perfectly on both my Toastrack and my +2A. How do you load WAV files into your machine? Also, have you tried converting the TZX files (the way you’d normally do it)? I use Tapir to play them back, but WAV files work fine as well. I tried it hundreds of times back when I was developing the loader with the computer and the phone as the source, varying the volume, etc.
P.S. The loader is self-recovering, by the way. If a particular block fails to load, you can just rewind to its beginning a reload. You can even rewind to the beginning of the tape, as it won’t load the wrong block.
P.P.S. Your picture suggests that you only added extra gaps between the loader and the loading screen, and the loader and the rest of the data. I assume you didn’t have to add gaps to the remaining blocks (there are quite a few).
P.P.P.S. A though occurs. You have a +2, right, not a +2A? In that case, how do you feed audio into it—via a cassette adaptor or an input jack mod? If it’s the latter, and the mod is a simple jumper to the ULA’s input, it might present two problems. One is that the +2 circuitry lacks a diode to ground that cuts off negative signals and a series capacitor to remove any DC offset before it. The ULA generally doesn’t take kindly to negative voltages on its EAR input; it may even get damaged. The other problem is that the signal may not always be strong enough (it’s effectively halved). Try editing my original WAV file and introducing a positive DC bias so that the signal doesn’t go below zero (well, occasional peaks are fine), and see if that makes a difference.
What I find strange is that your +2 didn’t like the slightly shorter pilot of the BASIC loader. There are a few commercial Spectrum games that use even shorter pilots, so that technically should not present a problem.