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to get hold of a copy of Cannon Fighter by Moorwood Software on cassette which to the best of my knowledge has not been archived so I have converted it to both CAS and TSX files.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.

 When Andrew Beer and I came up with this idea the intention was for people to build their own and many people have but once in a while someone comes up with something so amazing it really needs to be shared. JamHamster came up with the idea of fitting a TZXDuino in a cassette. Originally it was powered by USB and had a 3.5mm Ear socket but it looked amazing. Then he added a battery so that it was self powered. Then he added a head from a CD to cassette adapter. Then he added a switch under that head so that when you press play on the Cassette Recorder it plays the file you've selected. And the TZXCassette was born Because he is a great guy he's also uploaded the instructions on how to build one to Github and you can download the instructions and build your own. Now at the moment there is no REM control it may not work as well with a CPC 464 as it does with with a Spectrum +2 but it is a stunning piece of electrical engineering and a work of art in my opinion.

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.

The more I build and try to improve on the various firmwares I've realised that it's not entirely friendly for new users to edit their firmware for their version of device. In an aim to correct that I have added userconfig.h to the various firmwares. This is just a little settings file that users can change without fear of harming the main programme. It allows you to set which screen you are using and in future which startup logo for some screens and maybe other settings. How to use. At the moment the userconfig.h looks like this ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /*                                                             */ /*    ...

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...

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...

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...

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 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.

One of the things we've wanted from this project is for people to go out and build their own versions and show us pictures. Well Piotr Bugaj not only has built his own but 3D printed his own case and designed a Shield for the Nano.    SMD version.    Non SMD version   Pi otr has also released the schematic, pcb, and gerber files. They can be downloaded from here.

TZXDuino has moved out of Beta and is in it's first release version. Little has changed from v0.8beta3 except extra motor control for Amstrad CPC .CDT files. TZXDuino v1.0 The files can also be found on GitHub

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.