Re: Cassette port / CD-Rs

[steve@dosius.zzn.com (Dosius)]

Holger Picker <pickerh@uni-muenster.de> wrote in message news:<Pine.A41.4.44.0302262328550.122314-100000@zivunix.uni-muenster.de>...
> On 26 Feb 2003, Dosius wrote:
> 
> > Date: 26 Feb 2003 14:06:26 -0800
> > From: Dosius <steve@dosius.zzn.com>
> > Newsgroups: comp.emulators.apple2, comp.sys.apple2
> > Subject: Re: Cassette port / CD-Rs
> >
> > Grape_Soda <notgonn@do.it> wrote in message news:<a95q5v4i8hb5mqmrd6ah413fk84qm7n2at@4ax.com>...
> > > Is it possible to save the output from the cassette out jack onto a PC
> > > and then burn it onto a CD so you can have perfect loads each time?
> > > Better yet, are there any Apple emulators that can emulate the
> > > cassette port, so a person could get absolutely perfect audio saves?
> > > This would be good for backing up a good deal of file-based games onto
> > > one CD... If anyone has had experience with this, let us all know!
> > > When I get my new Apple, I plan on testing this out. If anyone can
> > > contribute any information on specific nuances about the cassette
> > > ports, I'd appreciate it as well.
> > >
> > > -Grape_Soda
> >
> > AOL.  If I knew how to operate the cassette port, Dapple would've had
> > cassette I/O a long time ago.  I've forwarded this to csa2 in the
> > hopes that we both may get some info.
> 
> Excuse me, please, for interrupting here. May I ask you, whether you plan to
> save the files on the CD as a .WAV file (i.e. make it an audio-CD) or as
> some binary file (make it a Joliet CD-Rom). If it's an audio-CD, the problem
> would be to convert the binary stream to a .WAV file. If it's a CD-Rom how
> would you read the binary file with an AppleII?

I'd think he plans to make an audio CD.  I've heard of this being done
with the MSX, BTW.

> Converting the speaker/cassette output to a .WAV file is rather difficult.
> In case you've ever listened to the sound emulators produce, you will have
> noticed the flaws. The same would apply to the cassette port. IMO, Kegs32
> has the best sound output; the algorithm found here uses quite a lot of
> floating point calculations, IIRC. (I've only taken a short glance at the
> source code.) IOW, even if the author(s) of Kegs would allow his/her/their
> code to be used with other emulators, it might be difficult to transfer it
> (e.g. to Dapple). 
KEGS, like Dapple, is GPL'd. http://sourceforge.net/projects/kegs/

> Recording the binary stream sent out by the cassette port,
> however, should not be that difficult, but then the question is how to send
> it back to the AppleII and which recording format should be used.

I'd come up with a ".cas" or ".tap" format like C64, MSX, Terse-80,
CoCo and Speccy emulators have, personally, with the option to
translate to and from WAV with a separate utility.

> IOW: AOL. If anyone has got some information about the cassette port, I'd
> appreciate that, too.
> 
> > There is an alternative: Dapple 1.x should have a program called
> > bin2pg2.  Extract a file from a disk image with some other utility and
> > use bin2pg2 to re-add the header.  Dapple 1.x and Appler, however, are
> > the only emulators I know which recognize that file format.
> >
> > -uso.
> Why has the new Dapple][ no option to load binary files anymore? Might be an
> idea for an improvement. ;-) (AFAIK, the emulator Apple2000 on the Amiga also
> had a feature to load binary files directly into ram. Well, why not? :-) )
> 
> Holger

True...well, you can always load raw binary streams with the debugger,
but it's a little bit tricky.  (And it's the only part of the code, if
I'm not mistaken, that actually uses the WDOSX extender as opposed to
go32 - so no lfn or anything.)  I'll see what I can do.

The PG2 format was the same as the .APL format on Appler (2 byte
Address, 2 byte Length).  I called it PG2 (PGM2) because APL could
also mean a program written in A Programming Language. ;)

-uso.