pet cassette images

[MikeS]

Mike,
Are these diskette images of the old 'Cursor Magazine' cassettes? I remember that the first file on them would be a funny animation. I would like one to check if they run on my 8032. If not, is there a software way to temporarily convert the 8032 to a FAT 40?

I ordered the TPUG CD and a nice guy named Ernie sent me an email saying he just shipped it. Now that I have a method of getting files from the PC to my PET, I am interested in trying these old files.
-Dave

Yes, I haven't looked at the images yet but that's what they should be, although I'm not sure that all 30 issues are there; I assume you saw the link I posted here earlier to the accompanying cover letters with descriptions of the programs and the odd bit of interesting news of the day.

Do you have both a datasette and a normal cassette deck to record a .WAV or MP3 on a cassette? Would be fun to see if you can recreate and load an image of one of the Cursor tapes if I send you a file.

Yes, there is software to make an 8032 pretend to be a small-screen Fat 40, although there are gotchas (especially the graphic/business keyboard differences); I'll look for one when I get back home, but I think there will be several instances on the TPUG CD as well.

 

[tezza]

But I meant an ordinary cassette deck which you could plug into the line out of the PC sound card to recreate the cassette; of course I'm also assuming that there's a datasette for the PET.

Slightly off topic but cassette decks suitable for computer data are actually getting quite rare..at least here in NZ. You can still get new cassette recorders but they tend to be for dictaphone use with a built-in (and unadjustable) level control for recording. I've tried to make cassettes for various machines using soundcard output from the PC on these machines but they never record loud enough.

Actually, you also have to watch the built-in sound hardware on computers also these days. Many have pathetic output volume which is not nearly enough.

Thankfully I do have a good "vintage" data cassette player and grunty soundcard on the computer shack PC, which enables me to make real cassettes using Audacity, for my home computer rest-home residents.

Point of this post is...if you have a standard old cassette recorder/player (not a datasette) which allows level monitoring and adjustment and you want to dabble around with vintage computers, hang on to it.

Tez

 

[dave_m]

Do you have both a datasette and a normal cassette deck to record a .WAV or MP3 on a cassette? Would be fun to see if you can recreate and load an image of one of the Cursor tapes if I send you a file.

Mike,
No, I don't care to be that authentic. Depending on the file format, I'll use VICE to get the programs into .prg files in my PC. Then I'll use Star commander (using DOS and the parallel port) and a XM1541 cable to write the files onto a 1541 floppy. From there, I'll walk it over to my 4040 drive to be read by the PET. It is a little convoluted, but seems to be a very reliable process.
-Dave

 

[MikeS]

Mike,
No, I don't care to be that authentic. Depending on the file format, I'll use VICE to get the programs into .prg files in my PC. Then I'll use Star commander (using DOS and the parallel port) and a XM1541 cable to write the files onto a 1541 floppy. From there, I'll walk it over to my 4040 drive to be read by the PET. It is a little convoluted, but seems to be a very reliable process.
-Dave

Hrmph! Spoilsport! It'd actually be simpler to use the cassette and you're going to miss the whole gestalt of the Cursor tapes (Brrr... Found xxx... Brrr... Found yyy... Brrr... Loading zzz...)

Disks? Images?? Emulators??? Pshaw and humbug!

Oh well, I'll just play with, err, by, myself then, to test Proof of Concept.

I'll send you the D64s off-list

m

 

[MikeS]

I'll send you the D64s off-list
m

@ Dave_m:

Did you receive the cursor images I sent you? I had a look at a few, and I'm seeing some corrupted files (and I also notice that issues 29 and 30 are missing).

If you have the means, try to run RATRUN on disk 3, tape 13 (one of my favourites) and let me know if it works for ya (and looks OK).

mike

 

[dave_m]

I had a look at a few, and I'm seeing some corrupted files.

If you have the means, try to run RATRUN on disk 3, tape 13 (one of my favourites) and let me know if it works for ya (and looks OK).

Mike,
Ratrun was one of my favorites too. It loads without error, but when I listed it, it showed only about 40 lines of code. It gave an error when run looking for a large statement number.

 

[Panther]

I know a while ago I asked about loading a machine language program from tape and then saving it back to disk.

At the time I was told to check the area of memory the program resided in and them use the PET's built in M/L monitor to save the code back to disk.

Problem is I can't remember how to identify which area of memory the program is in, can someone please remind me how to do this.

Thanks

 

[dave_m]

Problem is I can't remember how to identify which area of memory the program is in, can someone please remind me how to do this.

Thanks

First load the file from cassette. The starting address is usually the SYS address which starts the program. It is in decimal so you must convert to hexidecimal, i.e, 4096 decimal = 1000 hex.

If you have an 8K PET, then use an end address of 2000 hex. If you have a 32K PET, use 8000 hex.

Save using the following syntax in the ML monitor:
S "0:name",08,0401,8000 where 0: is the target drive; 08 is the device number for floppy, 0401 is the starting address, and 8000 is the end address.

To get to the ML monitor, use SYS 1024. You will get the dot (.) prompt.
To exit, use X

-Dave

 

[Panther]

Thanks Dave,

But how do I know the SYS (start address), and the end address, is there an easy way to find these ?

I'm using an 8096-SK Pet, is it possible to write a short basic program to return the memory addresses that are not empty ? or isn't it that simple

Stu.

 

[dave_m]

Thanks Dave,

But how do I know the SYS (start address), and the end address, is there an easy way to find these ?

Stu,
If you start the program with a RUN command, it usually means there is a one line BASIC statement added to the assembly code that does the SYS for you.

In that case, simply use 0401 as the start address (start of BASIC) and 8000 as the end address.
-Dave

 

[billdeg]

Most games of the cassette era would be done well before 2000. You can use the monitor to scan through memory. Its usually very clear where the program ends, even if you have no idea what exactly the machine language is saying, you'll note when you're in free RAM because the memory falls into a repeating pattern.

If you don't care about how long it takes for the tape to load then this is not worth doing however.

Bill

 

[MikeS]

Thanks Dave,

But how do I know the SYS (start address), and the end address, is there an easy way to find these ?

I'm using an 8096-SK Pet, is it possible to write a short basic program to return the memory addresses that are not empty ? or isn't it that simple

Stu.

AFAIK the starting address is in the file header but I think you have to count bytes to find the end; it's also stored in a memory location when you load the file IIRC.

I don't remember how or where though, and am not at home right now so can't look it up (and probably couldn't find it even if I were ;-) ); no way to know the SYS address AFAIK, but it's usually the starting address..

m

 

[Panther]

If you have an 8K PET, then use an end address of 2000 hex. If you have a 32K PET, use 8000 hex.

Save using the following syntax in the ML monitor:
S "0:name",08,0401,8000 where 0: is the target drive; 08 is the device number for floppy, 0401 is the starting address, and 8000 is the end address.

To get to the ML monitor, use SYS 1024. You will get the dot (.) prompt.
To exit, use X

Just so I'm clear, if I use the above, will this just save the entire contents of the Pet memory to disk ?

 

[dave_m]

Just so I'm clear...

In that example yes. But I'm assuming you would substitute the proper sys address for the default start address of $0401. Are you saying you do not have the starting address? In that case load the tape file from a power up condition, go into the monitor and search from $0401 to $8000 using the .m command, and find the area of memory that is non $AA. $AA is put into memory on power up during the memory test.

In the old days there was a slight chance that small routines were loaded into the 2nd cassette buffer ($033A to $03F9) so as to leave room for large BASIC programs. A BASIC program could then call the routine with a sys command. So you can look there later if no code is found in the BASIC area.

 

[dave_m]

AFAIK the starting address is in the file header but I think you have to count bytes to find the end; it's also stored in a memory location when you load the file IIRC.

Mike,
Yes, the first two bytes of a .prg file contain the starting address in low byte-hi byte format. If it's a BASIC program, the first two bytes are 01-04. Only a BASIC program stores its size as the variable MEMSIZ

MEMSIZ $0034-0035 Pointer: Highest Address Used by BASIC

 

[MikeS]

Mike,
Yes, the first two bytes of a .prg file contain the starting address in low byte-hi byte format. If it's a BASIC program, the first two bytes are 01-04. Only a BASIC program stores its size as the variable MEMSIZ

MEMSIZ $0034-0035 Pointer: Highest Address Used by BASIC

Seems to me that there must be programs out there that can create a tape catalogue, i.e. list the file names, load addresses and lengths of all the programs on a cassette, but I haven't found anything so far (haven't looked very hard though ;-) )

 

[dave_m]

Seems to me that there must be programs out there that can create a tape catalogue, i.e. list the file names, load addresses and lengths of all the programs on a cassette, but I haven't found anything so far (haven't looked very hard though)

Oh great! Now you will ruin the rest of my day in thinking about a solution to this...

I suppose if the catalog program had knowledge of the file names on the tape and could trick the system into thinking it was inputting sequential data files, it might be possible.
-Dave

 

[MikeS]

Oh great! Now you will ruin the rest of my day in thinking about a solution to this...
-Dave

Hey, why should I be the only one wasting time thinking about this; nice to have you on board ;-)