Commodore 64 Woes

[pubzombie]

Hi guys,
i know this isn’t gpx related but just wondered if you could help me. I just got my Commodore 64 bread-bins out of the garage and cant believe they still work. I have well over 200 games on tapes. Is there a way of getting the tape data onto my PC and vice versa, or to protect them am i going to have to pay the kids to make tape to tape back ups of everything?
Any advice or a poke in the right direction is appreciated.
Cheers
\pz

 

[plupp]

You can connect the datasette to the paralel port on your computer using a home made wire (schematics are available on the internet) you can then make .t64 files directly from your tapes.

Another option is to sample the tapes from a tape recorder using a tape deck connected to your computer line in port. The .wav file of a sampled game can then be turned into a c64 tape file .tap

Either method is difficult since the tapes most likely have a lot of rosstalk from being unused for 15 years. I tried this ten years ago and I got 70% of my data out, when I tried it again in 2006 almost no data could be retrieved using the same setup.

Be careful with the datasette since the rubber bands mights be dry and snap. If the rubber bands snap, they can be exchanged for ordinary household rubber bands of an appropriate length.

 

[fiveseven]

Aren't there sites out there where you can download the roms of various c64 games? It would be an idea to check your country's laws on this first, though.

 

[Chip]

Aren't there sites out there where you can download the roms of various c64 games? It would be an idea to check your country's laws on this first, though.
Unless you are spectacularly paranoid about this sort of thing, reacquiring the tape images from the Usual Locations is going to take much less time and effort than ripping the original tapes.

 

[Nova]

Yeah, I think it will be much quicker for you to check the internet for the backups already ripped uploaded to sites. These old games are reasonably easy to find backups of, as long as you navigate your computer to the right .com address.

 

[pubzombie]

thanx guys. There are a couple of games/software i really want to preserve - one was written by a friend of mine for a group of use to us when we were into dungeons and dragons and he has since passed away due to a motorcycle accident. i called round all my mates but nobody else has a copy. the other is a Chaos clone called Arena by Cult software that nobody seems to have heard of. I see what you mean about those data cassette players - all five of mine have just died on me this evening - better find an elastic band seller one bread bin has also just snuffed it - it just gives me alternating pink, black and blue screens. the other is holding out but RF modulation is real crappy. time for a hatchet job me thinks.

 

[Chip]

thanx guys. There are a couple of games/software i really want to preserve - one was written by a friend of mine for a group of use to us when we were into dungeons and dragons and he has since passed away due to a motorcycle accident.
If you're looking to recover original content, then you're not going to have an easy time of it. The first thing I would do is hook a regular tape deck to your PC and create a WAV file of the entire cassette. As Plupp mentioned, there are programs out there to convert these into binary files that can be run on C64 emulators. You may have to do some cleanup before it will be usable, but exactly how to go about this is beyond my expertise. I would troll some C64 message boards and see what others have used. I'm sure you're not the first person who has attempted to recover old programs from cassette.

 

[Squirrel61]

Yeah, I think it will be much quicker for you to check the internet for the backups already ripped uploaded to sites. These old games are reasonably easy to find backups of, as long as you navigate your computer to the right .com address.



LOL didn't know that site, thanks!

 

[pubzombie]

thanx guys. this will keep me busy a while. respect due. I will let u know how it goes
cheers

 

[Unfathomable Depths]

Yeah, I think it will be much quicker for you to check the internet for the backups already ripped uploaded to sites. These old games are reasonably easy to find backups of, as long as you navigate your computer to the right .com address.

Nice. Found some stuff I did back in The Day

Made me think of Barry Costas and him telling me about 'fractionals' (read 'fixed point') and how it changed my approach to game programming.

Cheers Stavros