ArduiTape/CASDuino/TZXDuino - The cassette player replacements

 I managed to get hold of a copy of Cannon Fighter by Moorwood Software on cassette which to the best of my knowledge has not been archived so I have converted it to both CAS and TSX files. You can download it from here.   A while ago ago I posted a link for the MSXtra compilation by Alligata but the TSX files were bad, but I've redone them and they should now all work. You can download them from here. You can download the CAS files from here.

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.

For the last few months I've been talking about how to add the PCD8544 (also known as the Nokia) screen to the devices. Unfortunately this has not been as easy as I'd first hoped largely due to differences in the screens. Some work well with the standard 5v of the Arduino Nano, others need the voltage in to be 3.3v. Some need resistors others don't. Finally however I can start to write things up properly though. The software has been written and is fully functioning for a while and whilst there are no improvements in what the ArduiTape/CASDuino/TZXDuino can do, it does use less memory than the other screens and looks a little nicer, in my opinion. CASDuino Turns Two. I have been reminded by my Facebook posts that today I completed my first CASDuino specific PP9 build two years ago today. I used the PP9N Evatron case as I was inspired by one of the TAPuino builds and it's a nice case to work with. Certain small things have changed since then, button caps, reset s...

Thanks to the help of Rafael Molina Chasserot some new features have been added to the TZXDuino and CASDuino firmwares which has freed up some memory as well, which may lead to more features being added in the future. A percentage counter and a timer counter have been added to all screens so that you know how much is left of a file to play and how long it has taken to load. The OLED1306 and PCD8544 use completely new routines for the firmwares saving a lot of memory. Folder navigation is now different. Rather than using the Menu button on TZXDuino or the Stop button on CASDuino to return to the ROOT directory, if you press the stop button when no file is playing you will go up one folder only making it easier to navigate. TZXDuino The TZXDuino has had a menu added so that MSX users can set the Baud rate of TSX files so that they can load faster than normal. A few more emulator only IDs have been fixed so that they are skipped by TZXDuino. CASDuino CASduino has had a Baud Rate of 3...

Whilst it may seem there han't been much going on in recent months we have been working behind the scenes on improving and adding more options to the various firmwares and trying to improve the hardware. The main difference with these firmwares is that OLED 1306 screens are now fully working on all of them and that the PCD8544 has added as a screen option. I will go into the hardware changes needed for that at a later date. ArduiTape 1.5 What's New Added support for the PCD7544. Download from here. CASDuino 1.15 What's New Improved support for CoCo and Dragon Added support for OLED1306 and PCD8544. Download from here. TZXDuino 1.8 What's New Added ID2A Added support for PCD8544 Download from here. TZXDuino 1.8.1 What's New TSX support for MSX TSX files added by Natalia Pujol. Not officially supported and any bugs should be reported to her. Download from here.

You can go to my Etsy shop and buy my builds of TZXDuino, CASDuino, and ArduiTape with the standard 1602 LCD and coming soon you will also be able to buy the new version with the PCD8544 LCD screen.

It's been a while since I've updated CASDuino but I've been trying to bring the firmware in line with TZXDuino and ArduiTape to make possible integration of the three firmwares at some future date. The major problem had being getting it to work with the OLED 1306 screen which has now been solved. Included in this firmware update is a 3rd screen option which is for the PCD8544 which I have also been working on and am now almost ready to share instructions on. What's New:- OLED1306 Support PCD8544 Support Improved Dragon compatibility Improved CoCo compatibility (auto run on CoCo games has not been fixed yet but we are working on it.) You can download the firmware from here. There are also reports of improved compatibility with the Phillips VG 8020 MSX however as far as I know any incompatibilities were due to a difference in the hardware chipset so how this has happened is a complete mystery but a win I will take.

After mentioning that I had gotten a CPC and attached a DIN to it so that I could connect it to the TZXDuino I have had a few requests on how to do it so I thought I'd try a guide. You will need to purchase 180 degree 5 pin female din that is chassis mountable. This is the type that I purchased except mine also had a mounting plate too. The standard 6128 cassette connector is wired like this. Each pin is numbered on the back so that you know which one you are connecting it too so don't worry if the pins are in different positions as it depends on whether you are looking from the connection side or the soldering side. I would use different coloured wiring for each type of connection. I used the following Ground - Black Data Input - White Data Output - Pink Remote Control - Brown At this point I added 4 male pins to the end of my wiring so that I could build a connector so that I could easily disconnect the DIN should I need to work on the cassette drive. N...

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...

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...

Tales of Popolon is a new MSX homebrew game that is still under development but a ROM has been released so people can play. I've used CASLink3 to convert it to a CAS file and tested it on my Toshiba HX-10 with CASDuino and it works beautifully. Here is a link to the games Github page. Here is the CAS file to download. Enjoy!!

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.

I've managed to get the CASDuino firmware up and running on the Maple Leaf Mini. It's not perfect, there are issues with 3600 baudrate and it cannot store your baudrate selection as of yet as the Maple Mini does not have an EEPROM to store your selection but it is now working. Sadly whilst .CAS files on the MSX work, the ones for the Dragon have been broken TZXDuino is proving particularly stubborn at the moment, it is at least playing sound but is very stuttery and that also causes ID errors after the main loader.

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...

Inspired by Piotr Bugaj and his TZXDuino Shield I thought I'd take his PCB design and add the 2.5mm socket and some right angle buttons and get it so it will fit into a PP9 case. This is a whole new thing for me as I have never designed a PCB in my life or used Diptrace before. Luckily it's quite an intuitive piece of software that's easy to use. After adding a design for a PCB mounted 2.5mm and also the buttons I managed to design a PCB that should work. Now however it's finding a reasonably priced manufacturer for a couple of prototypes before maybe a production run. If you're interested in looking at the Diptrace and gerber file you can download them from here.

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