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Loading Cassette Software

A

abruno17

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2020
Messages
188
Location
4104 Longworth Loop Kissimme, FL 34744
I just got my model 4 yesterday and boy oh boy what an experience! I have been trying for hours to load cassette software on thing but I cant seem to get it to work. I converted must of the .cas software in wav files and then recording it onto blank cassettes but I just cant get the computer to load them. Sometimes it will load but random characters will scroll the screen before giving the ready prompt. Sometimes it will give me loading errors. I dint know If I'm not setting the volume on my GE cassette recorder which doesn't have any numbers on the volume knob by the way. It does have however have a bunch of lines spread out through the dial. At the beginning of the dial there is a singling line than if you keep scrolling you'll find 2 lines then 3 and so on to you have 4 lines at the end of the knob. I just don't know what to do. Am I not recording the cassettes at appropriate volume. Normally I set my laptop to 50% volume when recording the cassettes. What am I doing wrong help!
 
Welcome to the wonderful world of Cassette Tape Loaded software. The Baud rate and volume plays
a BIG part of the loading process.

The best thing to do is type in some program that just prints a few strings of characters on several lines.
Then, save that to a tape at 500 Baud. Then do another at 1500 baud. Now you have two known
good tapes the Model 4 wrote, and should load back into the computer with success. There is a command
named POKE that pokes a byte in memory, that can change the Baud Rate. It's on the Model 3 Basic
Card I referenced in an earlier post. (Should be same command for the Model 4)

Unplug the line from the Cassette Player so you can listen to the actual volume. Those sounds, at that
volume are your STANDARD that you need to re-produce. Load each, in turn to the Model 4 and check
the load with the CLOAD? "test" command. Adjust volume up or down a small bit until it loads 100% correct.
Repeat for the other baud rate. If you can get the tapes your laptop writes the same volume, then you
should be in the ball park to get them loaded.

Now you know why there was a BIG rush to get Floppy's, following night after night fiddling with tapes and
Volume, to get a good load.

Larry
 
Save Command = CSAVE"P"
CSAVE"P",A

Load Command = CLOAD"P"
CLOAD?

C* = Checksum Error during load of a SYSTEM Tape. (HEX BYTES)

D* = Data Error during load of a Basic Program

When the program is being loaded there will be two Astersiks displayed on the Right portion
of the Display. The one on the Right will blink after every 64th Character of data is received.

Larry
 
Few more hints...

I used (still do) the Radio Shack CTR-80A which was designed for data use and wasn't cheap. I also had to replace the belt and recap it a few years ago to make it reliable again.
I only used high quality data cassettes...I NEVER had any luck with standard audio cassettes.
Deck heads needed to be kept clean and demagnetized.
Do not place the deck on top of or right next to the computer, the RFI will mess up your loads and saves every time.
It's so nitpicky, a fluorescent desk lamp was enough to mess things up.
I was never able to dub a copy using two decks or a higher end dual dubbing deck.

As already mentioned, write a basic program, save it and then see if it reloads properly. Forget about transferring the WAV file until you know for sure your equipment actually works.
 
I tend to agree, it makes no sense, but the volume is critical. And a little bit goes a long way.
The TRS-80 only knows the bytes it's getting and if it gets off you can have lots of garbage
for the load.

Best thing is to watch the blink rate of the right Asterisk and you will get the hang of it. It just
takes a bit of time.

By the time you get three games loaded you will have floppy drives working.

Larry
 
ldkraemer said:
I tend to agree, it makes no sense, but the volume is critical. And a little bit goes a long way.
The TRS-80 only knows the bytes it's getting and if it gets off you can have lots of garbage
for the load.

Best thing is to watch the blink rate of the right Asterisk and you will get the hang of it. It just
takes a bit of time.

By the time you get three games loaded you will have floppy drives working.

Larry
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity could it be my cassette recorder and not the computer?
 
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