ArduiTape/CASDuino/TZXDuino - The cassette player replacements

  TZXDuino 1.16 In TZXDuino 1.15.3 I added a bug that lowered the volume of some Spectrum TZX files and all ZX80/81 TZX, O, and P files so they didn't work for many people. I fixed this for 1.16. You can download TZXDuino 1.16 from here.   TZXDuino 1.17 The MAXDuino team added ORIC TAP playback functionality to their firmware which I have adapted to TZXDuino. I don't have an Oric Atmos to test it on so I have been recording the playback and loading on Oricutron and everything I have tried has worked. Obviously things may be different on a real machine. Team MAXDuino have also added a speed up function for Oric TAP files which I will add to TZXDuino 1.18 but so far I have been unable to get it to work correctly. You can download TZXDuino 1.17 from here.   And finally there is the updated instruction manual which now tells you how to access Turbo mode for the Electron, ZX80, and ZX81. It also says for Oric but that has not been implemented yet. You can download the pdf of v...

New firmware . TZXDuino 1.15.3 Adapted the MAXDuino ID19 code and TurboMode for ZX80/81. To access Turbo Mode for ZX80/81 and Electron please switch Turbo Mode On in the menu Also added UEF Chunk 117 which allows for differing baudrates in BBC UEFs. Added a Spectrum Font for OLED 1306 users converted by Brendan Alford. Option added to userconfig.h Added File scrolling by holding up or down buttons. By Brendan Alford. Download from here. CASDuino 1.24 Added a Spectrum Font for OLED 1306 users converted by Brendan Alford. Option added to userconfig.h Added File scrolling by holding up or down buttons. By Brendan Alford. Download from here.

Over the past few months I have been helping people via Facebook, either my personal page or through the official Arduitape page, to update their firmware using the Arduino IDE and it became painfully apparent that I needed top update the instructions so that they are relevant to the latests IDE and firmware. Thanks to Covid-19 I have time on my hands and have up[dated the PDF so if you would like to read it and give me feedback I would be most appreciative. The instructions are for Windows and the PDF can be downloaded from here.

TZX Block type ID15, bane of my existence when it comes to TZXDuino I found, with the help of users, that enabling ID15 screwed up many other TZX files that used to work under 1.13 on the MSX and Spectrum. To fix this I've added yet another option to the Menu. It's not how I would like to have done it but it works. If you're not trying to load a musical loader or a Direct Record (usually a Firebird game) on an Amstrad CPC then switch ID15 off. There are very few TZX files for the Spectrum that use ID15 and so far there are no TSX files for the MSX that use ID15. Also please make sure you turn the Gremlin Loader off as well as that can also stop files loading properly. Turn these options on separately if a file fails to load. IF after that it still fails then please let me know the file, where it's from, and what computer you are trying it on. TZXDuino 1.14.2 can be downloaded from here.

It's been a while since ~I've added anything new to the blog I have been still working on the project. TZXDuino 1.13 I've updated the TZXDuino firmware to include HQ.UEF support which was programmed by Rafael Molina Chesserot of the MAXDuino Team. Most unzipped UEFs will now work with the TZXDuino on both Electron and BBC. The only exceptions I've found so far are Uridium and Starquake on the BBC. Because the TZXDuino is now working on so many other models of computer and not just the Sinclairs I've added a Pause at Start option to the Menu. With this on, when you select a file and press play the file will be automatically paused unless you have typed in your load command on your computer and pressed enter and the motor control is plugged in. It's exactly the same way a cassette player with motor control would work. You can download the firmware from here. New Software Speaking of UEFs Ricky El-Qasem has made a UEF extraction tool that makes it so much more ...

Thanks to the work of Kernel Crash we have added uncompressed UEF playback to TZXDuino. This means that Acorn machines can be added to the list of computers that can use TZXDuino. There is standard mode and a Turbo mode that can be switched on in the menu. The turbo mode loads at 1500 baud and does improve the loading time on an Acorn Electron. There is also a 1550 and 1600 option in the TZXDuino.h file but not all Electrons can handle the faster speed. You can read Kernel Crash's blog here. You can download the TZXDuino 1.11 from here.

Now that I have my CPC464 all set I've been testing .CDT files and have noticed a few issues. The first is that when I altered the code that sped up things for the Spectrum I messed things up for the CPC so that has been rolled back. The second is that with the CPC the motor control and pause after blocks is very important and TZXDuino isn't calculating a long enough pause for some games which causes them to fail. This seems to be a limit to the TimerOne library of 8,191 milliseconds (1F FF). This obviously is a big issue that needs more investigation. Changes: *Fixed the garbled text bug (thanks to Rafael Malins Chesserot for that one) *Rolled back an update that made files load faster on the Spectrum but broke files on the CPC. *Added a 2.25 second delay on playback after a motor control pause to fix issues with compacted multiload games from http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/cpc_lzx.htm ToDo * There is a discrepancy between length of time of pause after block and what the ...

It's been a while since I've published anything on my progress on converting things to the Maple Mini so I thought I'd keep you up to date. I have converted TZXDuino to the Maple Mini and it is working but not properly. For some reason, even though it is using the same values as the Nano the frequency of the output is higher. So much so that fastloaders cannot be recognised and TAP and simple TZX cannot all register with the Spectrum. Oddly this would indicate that a microsecond for the Maple Mini is different to the microsecond for the Arduino Nano, yet the files play for a similar length of time. It's all highly confusing and I've put the project on the back burner for a while so I can concentrate on working any errors out of the CAS/TZXDuino Shield PCB. The good news being that when I was trying to figure out what was going wrong I noticed that TZX2WAV which we had been using as a benchmark to test our coding actually has a typo in it a decodes slower than the TZ...

Following from yesterdays CASDuino update I've now added the same function to Arduitape. Rather than needing a file called ROOT to get to the root of your SD card just press Stop when nothing is being played. Everything else stays the same. You can download the update from here.

A minor update to the CASDuino firmware negating the need for a ROOT file in every folder. Now if you press the stop button when nothing is playing it will go to the root directory. You can download the latest firmware from here. Work on Dragon compatibility is still ongoing but due to work pressures it may take a while. Sorry.

Andrew has made a huge leap forward with this update with almost every TZX I've tried working (one fail out of 100s) on the Spectrum and reports of similar compatibility with Amstrad files too. TAP files are also working with no fails too. With over 5,000 TZX games for Spectrum it's still a beta release but probably the last beta for a while before a final release. TZXDuino v0.8b3

Onward and upward. CASDuino is now on v1.11. The MSX side is working normally but there has been an update to the Dragon/ Tandy side. It's still not working properly but getting closer. TZXDuino is now of 0.7beta2. This update has improved the compatibility by getting Speedlock games to work but has broken some of the normal TZX games. V0.5Beta is working on the more regular TZX files so I've included this as well but it doesn't work with TAP files.We are working on these issues. CASDuino v1.11 TZXDuino v0.5Beta TZXDuino v0.7Beta2

The Arduino IDE has updated several of it's Library files but I haven't posted the latest updates of the on here for a long time so unrar this file and put it in the c://Users/[Name]/Documents/Arduino/Libraries/ folder.

Just a minor update. Andrew and I are working on a TZX version of Casduino. Much more complex than loading .cas files but if it works it will open up more possibilities. We have also added Dragon/Tandy .cas files to the Casduino but without one of the computers ourselves it's very much at an alpha stage and may well require the volume control mod to the amp. Also there is now a Facebook page where you can read latest development, ask questions, and even order a prebuilt PP9 version. The Facebook page can be found here.

How to use the Arduitape with the ZX Spectrum. Sorry I've been a little quiet recently but I've managed to get my grubby little mitts on a ZX Spectrum + 48k and have been testing it with the Arduitape. Unlike the MSX and other 8-bits the only limitations on frequency of the .WAV files is no higher than 22050 Hz due to the limitations of the software used. I was expecting to have all the difficulties of the MSX but I've tested lots of files at different frequencies and they all work fine. I've been using TZX2WAV to do the conversions. Open a command window. Type  tzx2wav -f [desired frequency] [filename].tzx [filename].wav   and that's it. I have been trying to experiment with a programme called OTLA which can output various formats of Spectrum, ZX81, Amstrad, and MSX files that playback at a higher rate and essentially turn a 5 minute loading game in to a 30 second loading game however it outputs at either 44100Hz or 48000Hz which is too high for the Ardui...

Audio Filter Redesign After building the more compact Casduino design I started thinking about building an Arduitape in a PP9 case as well which meant adding an extra GND pin to the main Casduino board but most importantly a smaller Audio filter to fit snuggly within the case. I managed to get the design down to 25mm by 15mm so there should be more than enough room. The components are exactly the same as the previous filter. Here is what the build looks like. 5p for scale. More MSX .CAS Files Going through the TOSEC MSX .CAS files I noticed a few more games that were not available in English were on eBay so I quickly bought them and converted them .CAS files for everyone to enjoy. In the .ZIP files are the instructions, box art, etc as well. Football Manager - World Cup Edition. Punch And Judy Next Plans My next plans are to build an Arduitape in a PP9 box and hopefully do a full write up on how to build it with all the components and instructions downloadabl...

Building The Casduino The main board for the Casduino is very similar to the MarkII board but as I had a specific project case in mind the dimensions needed to be changed. I had used an Evatron PPN Case in another project and wanted to use one for this to make a more compact and stylish product however the internal dimensions would make things a little more tricky. Although the actual board design in mine is slightly different I feel that the following one should give the best fit.   The only difference I would make to the design is add right angled pins for the GND and VCC connectors on the right of the board. Also I soldered the Arduino Nano directly to the board as adding a DIL socket would just make it more difficult to fit in the Case Rather than the usual buttons I ordered  some with different coloured caps, again to give a more polished look. Here is a template of how to cut out the hole for the LCD (Thanks to spcbm from Amibay for his t emplate for the Tapui...

As the title suggests these are two new games that have as far as I know never before been archived on cassette for the MSX. Each file contains pdf instructions and box scans. Cluedo Scrabble

Some new, different, patched, and now working game for the MSX. I've recently been building a smaller version of the CasDuino and have now finished it but I've also been able to buy a few games on cassette that are either not working or downloads are not in English (using the last TOSEC MSX_MSX_TOSEC_2012_04_23 download). I've converted these to .CAS files and am making them available to download. Football Manager was only previously available as a disk file Les Flics was listed to use BLOAD"CAS:",R as the load command but to get it to work you actually should type BLOAD"pss",r Uchi Mata previously only worked if you pressed CTRL+STOP once the .CAS file stopped loading. This has now been fixed Vampire This was not in the last TOSEC download and I have two slightly different versions. The game is still the same but the loading is different. Xenon was a game only available in Spanish and had a terrible bug where you couldn't use a joystick. This...

Yet another MSX CasDuino software update The joy of projects is they are never quite finished. This update fixes an issue I found with class 4 and above SDHC cards, a strange problem with Vampire by Codemasters, and now has a indicator for folders. Download here. Library Files required for CasDuino Update on testing I have been continually testing .cas files to make sure that they work on the CasDuino and so far the only games that I've had difficulty with have either been at 3600 baud but are fixed by lowering the baud speed or are faulty .cas files that don't even work on emulators. e.g. Uchi Mata. This week I've been using a programme called caslink2 to convert up to 32k .rom images to .wav files and then castools to convert them to .cas files and then testing them. CasDuino has been able to load every game I've tried so far so I'm very pleased indeed.