Re: Many questions about cassette tapes

[Egan Ford <datajerk@gmail.com>]

On Aug 11, 8:28 pm, mwillegal <m...@willegal.net> wrote:
> This is one of my favorite topics.  See my comments inline.
> > 5.  Any cool hacks, like IIe to IIe networking with audio?  Or a token
> > passing network with 3 or more IIs?
>
> These days you can use an iPod in place of a cassette recorder.  See this page.http://www.apple1notes.com/Home/Notes.html

This is precisely where I was heading with all of this.  However I
have had no luck saving to my iPhone 4 or iPad using a purchased Mic/
Headphone breakout cable.  The iPhone 4/iPad 2 refuses to recognize
the cassette out of my IIe as a mic.  I've tried various hacks.  If I
have time I'll try your method this weekend.

I did, BTW, find a solution that works very reliably using USB audio
that I'll be posting to my blog in the new few weeks.


> Also I have created an "C" language program that will convert a text file in Apple monitor format into an AIF file that can be played back with an iPod into an Apple 2.  This A1 oriented program doesn't add the checksum byte expected by the A2, but I have still been able to read these AIF files on an A2.  You just need to manually break the A2 at the end of the playback and check the last bytes of the load to make sure there hasn't been a bit picked or dropped.http://www.willegal.net/appleii/apple1-software.htm

This I have to play with.  Perhaps try to get working with the IIe.

>
> > 6.  Any great tape stories?
>
> I still have my tapes and a notebook from the pre-floppy days.  The notebook contains the location on the tape recorder's counter where I could find a given program on each tape.  rewind to beginning of tape, reset tape counter, then fast forward to where the note says the program begins.  I also hacked my tape recorder, so I could hear out of the speaker at the same time I was playing back to the computer through the monitor output.  Reliability is/was pretty decent.  In fact I've been able to play back an original 70's era tape recording of Dragon Maze (see the Red Book) into my Mac and successfully read the recording into the Virtual II emulator.

Now you just need the counter to have a serial interface so that you
can use your Apple to skip to the proper place automatically.  In the
80's I worked with Alpha Micros.  The OS and app updates came via VHS
tape.  Radio Shack created a player with a serial port (for control
only) that made the use of VHS tape a bit more automated.

Thanks again.