[Coco] Cassette Program Loading Help Needed

[Al Hartman]

If you're saving to a PC and loading from the PC or an iPod/Android. Make sure the file is mono and not stereo, and a WAV file, not MP3. MP3 is lossy and will screw up the file.

Sometimes demagnetizing the heads and adjusting the azimuth of the head in a cassette player helps. Use a non-ferrous screwdriver and adjust until it sounds the clearest. That's what we did way back in the cassette only days to get a balky tape to load.

Usually a higher volume is better.

At Zebra Systems, we used to sell something called a "Winky Board" that helped you set the level and load tapes better.

Sorry if you already knew most of this. Just hoping I add something that might help.

-[ Al ]-
On 3/20/2017 3:02:59 AM, RETRO Innovations <go4retro at go4retro.com> wrote:
On 3/20/2017 1:10 AM, Barry Nelson wrote:
> So you need some 6809 assembly coding again eh? Something maybe to display the raw bytes being read from the cassette port? My daughter and I might be able to do something. It will take some time…
Yeah, I do. I can't tell where the read code is getting messed up. As I
noted in a later msg, my Coco3 can't seem to laod code it saves, and I
have played with the audio levels quite a bit. The same levels that
don't work on the Coco3 work fine on the Coco1.
Thanks for the suggestion to pick up a few different models. It came in
handy.
> I would also suggest using a square wave output.
I think Dave is right, and square wave will work, but it has not worked
so far, even on the Coco 1.
> It uses an LTC1063 chip driven by two square wave inputs to generate a sine wave output for a wide range of input frequencies.
I may try it out, but due to the intended use of this solution, cost
needs to be very low, which translates into very low parts count. Thus,
I'd rather not use anything more than the ATMEGA168 and passives,
perhaps an odd transistor or two.

Jim

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