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150 System-80 Games Tapes recorded & recovered - Printable Version

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150 System-80 Games Tapes recorded & recovered - ChickenMan - 01-11-2023

In-between all the scanning and disk imaging of Microbee material over the past few months, a heap of System-80 tapes (I think there were 17 tapes) arrived to be recorded. Thanks to DavidC for making all these System-80 tapes available to be recorded. Only one was an original (Meteor Mission 2), the rest came as a variety of C-90 Tapes containing up to 12 games recorded on each side. Each side was played in a dedicated cassette player and captured using Goldwave running in Windows 11. Each side was recorded at 44.1khz and saved as stereo 16bit WAV files. Each game was then separated from the large file and saved as a mono WAV file. The tapes were in varying condition from poor to good. Each game was then loaded into MAME and/or TRS32 emulators but there were very few that would load error free, so soon gave that up. 

Apart from WAV files, CAS files were also needed (for emulators & some physical players and are substantially smaller) so the WAV files were loaded into WAV2CAS and if the status flag came up OK, they were then saved as a CAS file. CAS2WAV was then used to save the CAS file back to a working WAV file at 11khz 8bit mono (default settings) as square wave WAV files. A 95% successful recovery was done using this method. The WAV files have all been tested to loaded without error into TRS32 and CAS files into MAME emulator setup as a System-80. The WAV files can be written back to a Cassette so they can used in a real System-80 and the CAS files used in emulators like MAME. Remember, System files can only be loaded in via the built-in cassette unit unless you have done the mod to switch it to the back DIN plug.

DavidC has been able to copy the WAV files to an iPad, make up a cable to connect it to the back Cassette port 2 on his System-80 and successfully able to load the games in that way. He also provided the layout of his made up cable.

Most of these games are available on disk at https://willus.com/trs80/ but most System-80 owners don't have disk drive systems, only the built in Cassette or external Cassette or player, so its important to provided these games in this form. Many are of Australian origin, many are not, a total mixture. After considerable time of recording, processing and checking, these are the files that were recovered -

Code:
adder          desert_chase     marquee          solitair-cross_out
adv_count      doomsday         martian_patrol   sound
adv_fun_house  dueling          masters          space_chase
adv_ghost_town  dutchman        meteor_mission_2 space_raiders
adv_island      edtasm          midway_campaign  space_shootout
adv_pirate      eliminator      minefield        space_war
adv_pyramid    flight_simulator missile_attack    sphinks
adv_voyage      frogger          motorcycle_jump  star_cresta
airmail_pilot  frognlog         mutant_attack    star_fighter
alien_cresta    g-fight          nightshade      star_trader
android_hangman galactic_empire  north_atlantic  star_trek
armoured_patrol galactic_revolution  organ       star_warp
assault        galactic_trader  othello          stellar_escort
asylum          game_of_othello  outland         steller_warp
asylum_ll      ghost_hunter    paddle_pinball    strike_force
attack_force    gobble_man      panik            subs-n-choppers
a_space_cartoon gotcha          patrol           swamp_war
bable_terror    great_race      penetrator       taipan
baricade        hoppy_2          phenix          taipan_instructions
barrricade      institute        planetfall      telengard
barrys_cube    intruder        poker_pete        the_masters_golf
baseball        invaders_from_space  psycho      thunder_road_adv
basic_compiler  isolate          raaka-tu        tic_tac_toe
battle_station  j-boy            radland         towers_of_hanoi
bee_wary        jet              rallyx          trap
bomber          jigsaw_2        rear_guard       trs80_quiz
bowling        jungle          robot_attach      trs80_util
centipede      keno            rummy_master      trucker
chess_tutor    killer_beetle    santa_paravia    tunnel
clipper        killer_gorilla  sargon_chess      util_1
cosmic          knievel-stunt_cycle  scurve_invaders  util_2
cram            labrynth        sea_dragon        victory_at_bathurst
crowley        laser_defence    seige_of_camelot  warrior
dancing_demon  lessons          shuttle           wheel_of_fortune
death_maze      light_up_my_grid slot_machine     wild_west
defcom          lost_ship_adv    snake            zbug
demon_seed      lunar_lander       
depth           macropoly         
                 
The WAV and CAS file of each of the above were then ZIP'ed into the one file. To load them into MAME, select System-80 by double clicking it, then double click on [start empty] at the top and ignore the error message. READY ? soon appears on top of screen, hit ENTER and its now at the bottom. Hit SCREEN LOCK and then TAB and from the Menu select File Manager and load in the CASS file in the appropriate position. Exit menu and type in CLOAD and hit Enter. Once loaded, RUN will start the game.  If its a System file, at the READY prompt type SYSTEM and hit Enter. Prompt changes and type in the first letter of the games name and hit Enter. It starts loading and when the prompt returns, type / and hit Return and the game should start.  Here is one game running -

   
 
So in the Vintage Repository in the System-80\Software\Tapes folder we placed all the above

a_space_cartoon.zip
 .
 .
zbug.zip
 
ipad_to_system-80_cassette_audio_cable.pdf <-- in [i]System-80\Documentation folder[/i]
 
meteor_mission_2.jpg <-- in System-80\Documentation\Pictures\Tapes folder