How to dump cassette software - the basics

[deathtrappomegranate]

We've recently had quite a few messages from people who are keen to contribute to the software database, but aren't sure how to go about converting their cassettes to an emulator-friendly format. So, here's a quick guide to the process. It's pretty simple once you get the hang of it, and there's an almost magical feeling when you can get your stuff into an instant-load format, instead of always having to wait forever for your tapes to load!

First, you need to download wav2cas.zip from http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/8bi ... ripherals/. Unzip the archive, and put it in a working directory on your hard disk. There's some great documentation in the archive too.

Next, you'll need a cassette player with some form of output connector. A hi-fi tape deck is best, but a Walkman will do (or even that old machine that you used to use to load cassettes with your Spectrum!). If you're using a machine with separate left and right stereo outputs, it's usually only necessary to connect the right channel.

You'll need to connect the cassette deck's output to the audio input of your sound card or motherboard with a suitable lead. These are quite readily available.

The next step is to record the audio from the cassette as a .wav file on the PC. The "Sound Recorder" program that's built into Windows is fine for this. It can be found in "All Programs" -> "Accessories" -> "Entertainment" from the Start Menu in Windows.

However, Sound Recorder starts up with a default file that's only one minute long, and in the wrong format. You need to go to File->Properties->Format Conversion, and choose 8-bit, mono and 44.1 kHz to get a file that's compatible with wav2cas. Then, you need to have a blank file that's long enough to hold the audio data from the cassette. Most commercial tapes have 10-20 minutes of data, sometimes more. There's an easy way to do this. Simply record one minute of silence, then save the file as "1m_blank.wav" or something. Then go to Edit->Insert File, and repeatedly choose this file until you have a long enough blank file. Then you should save that file under a different name, like "empty.wav".

Now you can press the Record button in Sound Recorder and press Play on the tape deck. Once the recording is finished, save the wave file (in the same directory as wav2cas.exe) using another name.

Next, you click on wav2cas.exe, and you'll be prompted for the file name, and asked to confirm. Answer "no" whenasked if you want to print diagnostic data, and then wav2cas does its magic.

The program produces two output files. One is the .cas file that contains the converted data, and the other is a .hex file. This is a text file that summarises that data that were converted, and whether each block of data was "OK" or bad. This can be useful if the conversion doesn't work the first time, as it can tell you where any errors occurred in the file.

Remember that wav2cas requires 8.3 character filenames - so the name of the .wav file to be converted should have 8 characters or fewer before the ".wav" extension.

If all went well, you should have a working .cas file at this point. If it's one we don't have, we'd be delighted to hear from you!

20+ year-old cassettes are surprisingly resilient, but the conversion process doesn't always work first time around. Sometimes a few tries are necessary. If a conversion fails the first time, it's often worth trying to adjust the line input volume on the PC (using the Volume Control from the taskbar).

Sometimes further audio processing is required, but well-preserved cassettes can often be converted quite easily.

Good luck - and let us know if you have any problems!

[Mr.Bacardi]

You can also your N-gage for sampling
That's how I converted some games to cas-format...
I then converted *.aac files to*. wav format with Xilisoft's mp3 wav converter.
For stripping down to mono I took Steinberg's WaveLab lite.
And, of course, wav2cas program !

[atarimania]

I tried to convert a tape but wav2cas told me that my .wav didn't contain any data. Coud you check it ?? Too much 'noise' ? I made 3 differents tests without any success

http://www.atarimania.com/franck/test_cas.wav

Thanks

[Mr.Bacardi]

After a long break I used cas2wav program again, so I hope I didn't make any mistake ...
But as you can see in the generated HEX file there are many bad values - so converted cas file won't run !

Converting the wav to cas file itself was working fine !

[atarimania]

Did you convert my wav file successfully ?

[deathtrappomegranate]

I think that the first thing to try is to reduce the input level on your soundcard by about 50%.

[video_game_addict]

I have a few questions.

First concerning the wav2cas program, I've recorded a wav file, and when I start up wav2cas I get the prompts mentioned above, and then it asks for a description and I type whatever, but then that closes the window. I'm not sure what's suppose to happen next? Is the program terminating prematurely? If so why? or does it work in the background? If it is still working, where does the end result show up at?

Second question, with multi load tapes, do you just record the whole thing or do you stop at each pause? I've also got a tape that starts with Atari, then turns into a pet 2001 program on the tail end, so I've tried to stop the recording process when I think the Atari part has ended, but can you record the whole thing and just let this program distinguish the difference?

[deathtrappomegranate]

If you're running wav2cas in Windows XP, try right-clicking on the program icon in explorer and clicking on "Properties". Then, on the "Program" tab, uncheck the "close on exit" checkbox. That should give a better idea of what's going on. Normal procedure is that the program takes an input file xxx.wav and outputs xxx.cas and xxx.hex in the same directory.

For multi-load tapes, just record the whole thing in one go.

For Avalon Hill or other examples where there is an Atari version followed or preceded by a version for another machine, I use a wave editor to remove the non-Atari part.

[video_game_addict]

Well that keeps my window open at least. Now I'm getting the same error that Atarimania got above. Wav file contains no data. I've made several attempts playing with the volume on both ends and used both the mic inputs & line-in but nothing changes. Would it be possible to upload a working wav file that I can compare with my sound recorder to see what I'm suppose to be coming up with? Instructions above were so clear & to the point I don't know how I'm missing it now.

[deathtrappomegranate]

I've uploaded a .wav file to http://www.atarimania.com/franck/mc.wav.

This is a recording of "Master Chess" by Mastertronic. It should convert to a .cas file using wav2cas with no problems.

[Atari Frog]

Are the titles of the CLOAD variety? Assuming you have an Atari tape deck and a disk drive, you could always CLOAD the programs - or the different parts of the programs - and save them to disk. It would then be dead easy to reconstruct them as CAS images. Actually, that's how some early unprotected BASIC games were converted!

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

[deathtrappomegranate]

It's also worth checking that you haven't accidentally recorded the left stereo channel by mistake.

[ChrisTOS]

Hi,
I am trying to archive some of my tapes (I think since they are Greek therefore rare they'd be of some preserving value), but I am not able to get them into cas. The problem as I understand is that they carry both audio and data in the tape therefore it gets mixed by my pc's soundcard. So if I try to record on mono I don't get a good enough quality for wav2cas to work. Also wav2cas won't work with stereo eav's. So, what must I do? Are there any tips you can give me? Thanks in advance.

[Mr.Bacardi]

Is there a program that converts HEX files to *.cas file?

[Kr0tki]

There's a xex2cas utility at Ernest R. Schreurs' website.

While you're at it, maybe this will arouse your interest.