[Coco] Recovering a damaged cassette file

[Bill Pierce]

Mr. Flexer,
 upon examining the wave file of the tape. There is clearly an audio dropout near the end. The volume slowly decreases to almost nothing then increases back up to normal level. This seems to happen before the EOF block during the large contiuous data block. It's not recorded in ASCII format as the file is continuous and ASCII would be short bursts. It also seems to be a small program according to the length of the wave.
This could easily be caused by a magnatized tape head, storing near a magnet, or just age deteriation. 

Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Bill Pierce
ooogalapasooo at aol.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Wed, Sep 5, 2012 12:25 am
Subject: Re: [Coco] Recovering a damaged cassette file


And following up on my last message:

Try doing a PCLEAR 1 before CLOADing the program, also, and see if it
will load then.  If a program runs out of memory while loading, you
will get an IO error, I think, just as you observed.  (You'd expect an
OM error, but I suspect that's not what you get.)

Art

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 12:18 AM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> Just a thought....
>
> Is it possible your program is too big to fit in memory with Disk
> Basic, and will only load under Extended Basic (no disk controller)?
>
> Art
>
> On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 11:59 PM, Diego Barizo <diegoba at adinet.com.uy> wrote:
>> I really don't mind that much if I can not recover the part after the drop.
>> It is at the 15 second mark of a 16 second recording. Since it is a game I
>> wrote about 20 years ago, I hope I will be able to recreate the code.
>>
>> I know that in some cases, if I reset the CoCo right before getting the IO
>> ERROR, most of the program is actually loaded, but when I try it with this
>> one, the computer freezes.
>>
>> It was probably the best game I ever wrote - or maybe is just the years
>> blinding me ;-) - and I was such an idiot as to not keeping at least 2
>> copies of it, as I always did :-(
>>
>> Diego
>>
>>
>>
>> Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The break at the beginning is no problem AFAIK having heard tapes loading
>>> so
>>> many times.
>>>
>>> Pasting a good section would not be useful.
>>>
>>> It might be possible to increase the level of the bad section but I have
>>> never tried. A FFT of the bad section would tell the tale.
>>>
>>> Making the wave form available might allow some help, but the picture does
>>> look pretty bad.
>>>
>>> Playing the tape on a high quality audio tape recorder might help, I never
>>> used a CoCo RS one having purchased a good audio one for computer usage
>>> right at the beginning. Money well spent but I never saved anything with
>>> just one copy.
>>>
>>> Cleaned and demagnetized your tape head lately? I had to get mine out just
>>> to spell demagnetized. I have two bottles of tape head cleaner.
>>>
>>> There may be an utility that could recover the last part, but if it is
>>> code
>>> that is lost, do not waste your time.
>>>
>>> If you found the wave file online perhaps there is a good copy elsewhere
>>> online.
>>>
>>> Name and location of the bad one would help in that case.
>>>
>>> SHF
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Diego Barizo" <diegoba at adinet.com.uy>
>>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 6:07 PM
>>>
>>> Subject: [Coco] Recovering a damaged cassette file
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have a program saved on tape that I would love to recover.
>>>> The problem is that the tape as a "drop" near the end of the file.
>>>> Has anyone ever been able to recover, at least partially a damaged
>>>> cassette file?
>>>>
>>>> I was thinking about just copying and pasting a good section of the file
>>>> on top of the damaged one, using Audacity ( an audio editor )
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestions on what to do?
>>>>
>>>> In case it helps, here is a screenshot of the last section of the
>>>> waveform. You can see 2 drops, a small, sharp one first, and a bigger one
>>>> almost at the end.
>>>> www.yaccs.info/MyDoD.jpg
>>>>
>>>> Thanks to all,
>>>>
>>>> Diego
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Coco mailing list
>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
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