sucess rate with wav2cas

cjwhoishe · Post by **cjwhoishe** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:54 pm

Hi everybody,
My first post, and maybe a little long.
While clearing out the attic I have recently dug out my collection of various atari computers, games and utilities.

The machines are:-
2 Original 800's one with 48K original memory 1 with 64K homebrew mod
1 Original 400 (again with 64K homebrew mod)
1 600XL with 64K homebrew mod
2 1010 cassette units
1 original 1050 disk drive

I have built an SIO2PC cable and transfered almost all of the disks to the PC as ATR files but have not managed to transfer all. An example of one I cannot transfer is Beach Head but this is on here anyway.

I then tried to do some of the tapes and started with 2 utilities from english software, which are not on here, ES forth and ACE (atari cassette enhancer). I tried using WAV2CAS which is on the sticky above but found that it failed with an error stating that it could not find the data chunk in the WAV file. Looking at the code and the format of the WAV I could see it would never work, thought about changing it but found a more recent version on the web which did seem to at least process the file.

My problem is that I am not having a great deal of success with this. I can only get the first stage loader for ACE to work but no success at all with the ES-Forth.

How much success have other people had with this utility?

Regards

Post by **Atari Frog** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:35 pm

Hello,

Thanks for dropping by!

Some of the English Software titles have specific loaders so that would explain your difficulties. ACE hasn't been uploaded yet but I believe it was converted successfully by Wrathchild.

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:59 pm

As Atari Frog has said, some of the English Software titles are problematic to convert because of their custom loading routines, but we have been having more success with them recently.

I have Atari Cassette Enhancer, but haven't converted it yet, although I don't have English Software's Forth.

Are you able to make .mp3 files of the cassettes?

cjwhoishe · Post by **cjwhoishe** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:09 pm

Thanks for the help. I think I have eventualy cracked the ES forth tape.

After trying numerous recordings with different volume settings on the PC recorder and player plus a total of 3 cassette players (which all have not seen the light of day for a while) I have got a wav file that gives no 'bad' statements in the HEX file and a CAS file that actually loads in the emulator.

How do I get some of you guys to try it, Should I email it via the contact page.

All that is left for this one is to find the original manual and scan that in and send that as well if you want it.

I kept the settings exactly the same for some other tapes and had no success. The next one I may concentrate on is Pirate adventure from Adventure international which is similar to a number of other adventure games I have from the same suppliers.

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 9:59 pm

Great news!

It's often necessary to experiment with volume levels, etc.

An email to the "Contact" link should get the file to us, and a scan of the manual/packaging would be great.

I'm a little behind on emails right now, but we would be very pleased to get a hold of that dump.

Thanks!

cjwhoishe · Post by **cjwhoishe** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:53 pm

OK
I will try and scan the manual over the weekend, it is an A5 booklet with about 80 pages.
How do you want it scanned and at what kind of resolution to keep the file size down?

I have since been experimenting with some other games cassettes I have ( and you do not have on here) and had some success with a jigsaw puzzle from Thorn EMI video which I have scanned the information for and this with very few pages is lots of megs at 600dpi even in JPEG form.

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:40 pm

Most of the images on the 8-bit section of Atarimania are 600 pixels wide, but we prefer to receive larger files to allow for a little processing. It's not necessary to send 600 dpi files at all. If the contrast and colour saturation of the images are good, then 800-1000 pixels width, medium-compression JPEG files are ideal.

Success rates with wav2cas are now over 90%, and still improving. We're happy to try to assist anyone who's having problems converting their cassettes.

Thanks again for your time and effort!

[img::]http://www.pushupstairs.com/images/emot ... 3/appl.gif[/img]

cjwhoishe · Post by **cjwhoishe** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 8:14 pm

Hi,
Finally scanned the ES-FORTH manual in and have sent details, using the contact button, on how to get access to it. It was still far too large and my email service was not leting it through.

I am not getting anything like the 90% success rate you refer to. I probably need to get a better working cassette player. than one of the many I have tried from out of storage.

cjwhoishe · Post by **cjwhoishe** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 7:45 pm

Getting a much better success rate now.
I have found that it is better to capture the audio at 16 bit resolution and then use a WAV editing tool to filter out any signal below 2.5Khz and above 6Khz. After this filtering then apply gain to get as much signal as you can without clipping the signal.
For interest i am using Audacity at the moment for this.

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:07 pm

cjwhoishe wrote:Getting a much better success rate now.
I have found that it is better to capture the audio at 16 bit resolution and then use a WAV editing tool to filter out any signal below 2.5Khz and above 6Khz. After this filtering then apply gain to get as much signal as you can without clipping the signal.
For interest i am using Audacity at the moment for this.

Personally, I use 8-bit resolution for recording, but I also use a band-pass filter in much the same way as you.

The quality of the signal from the cassette deck is important, and the level of that signal can be crucial. Sometimes it takes several attempts to get a working file, but it's worth the effort when you do.