Re: Cassette port / CD-Rs

[Simon Williams <*email*@*luddite.ca*>]

On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 23:59:15 +0100 Holger Picker <pickerh@uni-muenster.de> wrote:

> 
> 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?
<edit>

As a matter of fact, I was just playing around with using my Mac as 
'tape' storage for my Apple IIe. I've never actually used tape, so I
can't make a comparison, but I was able to save/load a few small
programs with little difficulty. I recorded the output at 16/44100,
which is probably a bit OTT. Since the bit-stream is 1-bit, 300 baud
(if I'm not mistaken), it should be okay to record at a much lower
quality -- I think 8-bit/800 Hz is probably the lowest any modern 
software will do, but even that is likely more than adequate.
I had thought about converting the audio to MP3 and seeing if it
still worked, but I got side-tracked.

As far as emulators go, I'm sure it would be possible to write a
program that could create a .WAV file from a specific range of memory.
That way you could use a decent audio player to load the program
into your Apple II, thus avoiding any problems with the emulator's
sound output.

I think 'perfect loads everytime' might be a bit much to shoot for
since the biggest problem is likely to be getting a clean signal from
one machine to another -- it's been my experience that computer mic
and headphone jacks are not usually the most rugged of components.

-- 
Simon Williams
Luddite Enterprises
http://www.luddite.ca