ArduiTape/CASDuino/TZXDuino - The cassette player replacements

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 ...

I've finally managed to get hold of a CPC464 so I can see what compatibility is like with TZXDuino. One of the first things I did was add a DIN so that I could connect the TZXDuino to it. Rather than the normal 5-pin DIN that the CPC664/6128 use I decided that as I already have the cable for the MSX I would add an 8 pin DIN. After some testing I found the best places to solder the connections and now it is up and running with full motor control. As there are no TOSEC like downloads for CDT files I have been using both CPCRulez and CPCPower for the downloads. TZXDuino compatibility is quite good with CDT files although there are a few that use the ID15 block which currently is not compatible but I did notice some issues. Some games seemed to have insufficient pause blocks and whilst they worked on emulators they did not with either TZXDuino or WinTZX playback. These were quite easily fixed by adding a pause block to the CDT file (Aliens, Ghouls and Ghosts, Turbo Outrun). Others howe...

I've updated the CASDuino firmware so that it will load some games with Xroar but there has been no luck on an real Dragon. Can you please give it a test and let me know the results? Thank you. Download

ZX81 P and O filetypes have been added to TZXDuino. There is also a minor speed update that shaves a few seconds off previous load times. https://mega.nz/#!Ldkn3Q7L!hOjJVTZZQcRulmDdmVB19HxA04mFa9oAKAsEmrDD2qk We were hoping to have an update to CASDuino with working Dragon CAS files but unfortunately whilst we can get Chucky Egg to work we still can't get others to work. We are still working on it though.

One of my desires when I first thought about this project was to have something for everyone and for users to just be able to put their files onto an SD card and go but to remain cheap. The Arduino Nano was the perfect starting place for that but it quickly showed it's limitations, so now we're trying to port the firmwares over to the Maple Leaf Mini using the STM32Duino add on to the Arduino IDE. It's still very much a work in progress and there has been a slight hardware change, the original SD card readers we used are not compatible with the Maple Mini, but we have managed to get the Maple Mini version of ArduiTape working and playing .WAV files. Unlike ArduiTape you are not restricted to the frequency of .WAVs you can play and you also do not require a low pass filter to play the .WAVs What you need. Maple Leaf Mini 1602 I2C LCD   TF Micro SD Card Module Mini SD Card Module Memory Module LM386 Amplifier Module 5 button button board (See earlier blogs for instructions...

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.

A Giant Leap For Nerd Kind. I'm not usually one for silliness but Andrew Beer has been working hard in the background trying to programme the Arduino to play ZX Spectrum .TZX files without the need to convert to a .WAV. Today he has managed to do that with some .TZX files but also with .TAP files as well. The code is still very much in the early stages so the compatibility with.TZX files is still relatively low but in theory all .TAP files should work. I only have 5,246 to test. What's even better is that the code will work on both the Arduitape and the CASDuino hardware by just uploading the programme to the Nano. Simply download this file, unzip and load in the Arduino IDE.

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.

Andrew Beer has been working hard on updating the software for the original Arduitape and the MSX specific Casduino. Software update for Arduitape. Here is an update for the Arduitape software. It is now compatible with the latest Arduino IDE and supports Long File Names. The quality of play back has also improved. Download here. Software update for Casduino the MSX specific version of Arduitape. This software update now includes the ability to change the playback baudrate between 1200/2400/3600. 1200 and 2400 baudrate works perfectly on a Nano based machine and an Uno based machine. 3600 is somewhat experimental and works on about 95% of games on both machines with a standard 2GB sd card, 100% on an Uno based with a class 4 SDHC card and 98% on Nano based machines with a class 4 SDHC card. Also with Long File Name support. Download Here.

Here is the latest software release for Casduino (The MSX CAS file playing version). What used to be the Motor Control On/Off button now selects 1200 or 2400 baud speed for faster loading. We have tried 3600 baudrate but it's too much for the software. There is some scrolling of filenames but it is buggy. If there are any programmers please feel free to improve on the code and let us know. Let me know of any problems with link.