Cassette Interface

[Will Senn]

So, I've ordered up my PAL-1 with Motherboard and 2nd RIOT and I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to check in on my soldering skills. Well not so much the soldering, but I'm eager for the end result of having a programmable KIM-like experience as I work through Leventhal's experiments and Lancaster's Micro Cookbooks.

But, I'm curious who's used the cassette interface? I didn't buy it, cuz I was funds limited, but I'm thinking about it for my next round and I'd like to know how it works for folks. Also, I'd be curious to know what brand/model of recorder y'all use?

Later,

Will

[Jim McClanahan]

I've bought it and soldered it together. I haven't actually tried to use it yet.

There was a time when I had no choice but to save my only copy of a program to tape--now I wouldn't feel comfortable having my only copy on tape. :-)

One day I'll track down a tape player. I actually have a lot of old Ohio Scientific stuff on tape that I'd like to try to archive also, so it will all probably wait until I can dedicate some focused time to both projects.

Unless you really want to play with audio, a RAM expansion card is going to enable a lot more new things (like MS BASIC) to explore.

Thanks,

Jim W4JBM

[Magnus Olsson]

If there's one thing about old 8-bit computers which does not make me nostalgic, it's having cassette tape as the only mass-storage option. It was slow, unreliable and just a pain to work with.

So I'll probably not be building the cassette interface. If I do, however, I'll probably use the sound card on my PC to emulate a cassette player.

[Hans Otten]

I used audio cassettes for reading and storing for years (1977-1986). Once everything was setup with the right levels and azimuth, it was very reliable and gave enough ime to drink coffee and thinks while waitingfor it.!.

KIM-1 audio, two identical tape recorders out of a hifi system (junk store), motor on/off controlled by the KIM-1, one for reading, one for writing.  Of course everything of value stored twice on a tape and also on another tape.
Micro ADE as 'operating system'. I wrote books and much software this way. Normal FE tape. Tapes from e.g. 1982  were readable via a PC sound card (and a working tape recorder, the old ones were unusable. the belts all 'melted') in 2006, when I archived the tapes and got rid of the cassette tapes.
The KB9 we use nowadays came from one of my tapes, as most of the KIM software I have on my website.

As Jim says, reading and writing with a PC sound system to the KIM audio just works fine now, with the same level adjustments wizardry.  No way I will add a tape recorder and tapes to my setup now!

So the KIM-1/PAL-1 audio system is still nice to have. 

[Will Senn]

Thanks Hans, and thanks Jim. "...reading and writing with a PC sound system to the KIM audio just works fine now..." I didn't catch this when Jim said it, but now I realize that I didn't think through what this means. I have lots of PC's :), I have audio cables, and I'm about to have a PAL-1 (if the post ever shows up). I will  have to order the cassette interface, but I'm guessing you mean I can hook an audio wire with headphone jacks from the headphone out of my Mac/PC to the microphone in of my PAL-1 cassette interface and from the headphone out of my PAL-1 cassette interface to the microphone in of my Mac/PC and I'll be able to magically store and retrieve program files in sound files... Wow, that just makes sense. On the PAL-1 side, I'm guessing its just the standard tape utilities on the ROM? On the Mac/PC side, are we talking about anything other than Audacity or somesuch?

Will

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[Jim McClanahan]

For tinkering with audio on my radios, I use Audacity and it works pretty good. With the radios, ground loops can be an issue. I use an audio transformer to isolate the radio from the computer. (I just use old 600 ohm 1:1 transformers that you can get for a dime each in places. They have them installed in cases and with cables on the auction site at reasonable prices also.) I have transformers in both the mic and speaker lines. (Whether you have problems or not is going to depend in part on the power supply you're using.)

I would guess you'll have to use fairly high quality MP3 (48K at 16 bit or so) to avoid issues with compression artifacts in the audio. (Or you could use one of the lossless formats.)

There is/was a neat project for the Spectrum that used either an Arduino or a PIC to take a data file and convert it to audio. The idea was you could take a simple binary file, store it on the device as binary (which is as compact as you can get without compression) and then "play it back" with the offboard device basically generating audio just like the Spectrum would have. Since most people these days probably use it more for nostalgia than anything else and would just be loading games "like the old days", it seemed like a clever idea.

Thanks,

Jim W4JBM