porge Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 By the way (@spookt) if you have it in ATR already, that would be great also. I notice from this thread that you were archiving the Atari Computing tapes - how far did you get? Also you mention your website, it would be nice to take a look around it if it's up and running now. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted June 24, 2011 Share Posted June 24, 2011 Hi Guys, Just bumping this thread incase anyone who has tapes of 'Atari Computing' that myself and others are looking for can perhaps get in touch. @spookt- I've downloaded and gone through issues 1 and 2 that you posted, wow it took me back - I remember it well. Thanks for posting them. Did you get past issue 2 with the CAS imaging work? If so, would it be possible to post them/a link to them? Looking forward to when one of you guys can find the tape with my adventure on it, I'd love to see it again. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted June 25, 2011 Author Share Posted June 25, 2011 Hi Guys, Just bumping this thread incase anyone who has tapes of 'Atari Computing' that myself and others are looking for can perhaps get in touch. @spookt- I've downloaded and gone through issues 1 and 2 that you posted, wow it took me back - I remember it well. Thanks for posting them. Did you get past issue 2 with the CAS imaging work? If so, would it be possible to post them/a link to them? Looking forward to when one of you guys can find the tape with my adventure on it, I'd love to see it again. Cheers! Hi Yes I have issue 3 as cas files and issue 4 is in my deck to be imaged. I hope to get them on line as soon as possible. On the subject of issue 8 which has your game on it things aren't so positive at the moment. I have 3 copies of issue 8 and all of them seem to have problems and especially Treasures of the Golden Reef However it's often possible to recover these type of tapes and I should have some more time to look at it next week. In the mean time if anyone has a copy of issue 8 I'd be glad to hear from them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 25, 2011 Share Posted June 25, 2011 Let me pull Issue 8 and see how it looks when I try and load it. Havent tried in a long time so who knows, fingers crossed, we might get lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted June 25, 2011 Share Posted June 25, 2011 Let me pull Issue 8 and see how it looks when I try and load it. Havent tried in a long time so who knows, fingers crossed, we might get lucky. Thanks to you two guys for trying, I really appreciate your trying to get my program back for me! Fingers toes and eyes are crossed...!! Cheers! Porge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 25, 2011 Share Posted June 25, 2011 Man, these guys used some cheap tapes for these... I'm having terrible luck getting any of them to load (I'm able to load pretty much any commercial tape I throw in the 1010 - just not these) I'm going to try and see what happens if I record them to wav and mess with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 25, 2011 Share Posted June 25, 2011 Can't get a good dump at all. Was able to load the first two items on the tape, but your adventure gives me Error 143 at line 0 every time I try and load it, and lots of bad blocks when I run it through wav2cas or a8cas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 Can't get a good dump at all. Was able to load the first two items on the tape, but your adventure gives me Error 143 at line 0 every time I try and load it, and lots of bad blocks when I run it through wav2cas or a8cas I'll put some more work in on this later this week. I'm confident we can get a good dump. I have two copies which fail at different points and one which gets so close to the end it's painful. Interestingly enough on two of my tapes I can load everything except Golden Reef too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Can't get a good dump at all. Was able to load the first two items on the tape, but your adventure gives me Error 143 at line 0 every time I try and load it, and lots of bad blocks when I run it through wav2cas or a8cas I'll put some more work in on this later this week. I'm confident we can get a good dump. I have two copies which fail at different points and one which gets so close to the end it's painful. Interestingly enough on two of my tapes I can load everything except Golden Reef too. Nothing worse than an unsuccessful dump, especially when it is painful at the end 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 Can't get a good dump at all. Was able to load the first two items on the tape, but your adventure gives me Error 143 at line 0 every time I try and load it, and lots of bad blocks when I run it through wav2cas or a8cas I'll put some more work in on this later this week. I'm confident we can get a good dump. I have two copies which fail at different points and one which gets so close to the end it's painful. Interestingly enough on two of my tapes I can load everything except Golden Reef too. Nothing worse than an unsuccessful dump, especially when it is painful at the end PMSL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 (edited) nice. Golden reef loads completly to the end on my tape, but still gives me error 143 at line 0. I've tried three different tape decks to try and get a good WAV but they all fail with TONS of bad blocks. If it comes down to it I may just have to send my tapes to spookt for archiving Edited June 26, 2011 by orpheuswaking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 (edited) Well you're more than welcome to. Of course I would return them, but let's wait and see if I can get a good dump here first. I just haven't had any time this weekend to do any Atari stuff but the back end of next week should be better. Oh and you're right about the quality of the tapes On my 3rd copy of Issue 8 the felt pad behind the tape appears to be dissolving. If I can't get a good dump from the other two I'll recase the tape from that cassette in a new shell and try it. Edited June 26, 2011 by spookt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 hmm, I didn't think to try in a new case. the felt on mine is pretty bad.. I don't think I have any spare shells with screw covers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Ahhh I think we may be getting to the main problem with these dodgy tapes... the pressure pads have foam rot. The same thing is common in 1970's and 1980's film cameras, causing light leaks because the foam rots, eventually either crumbling into a powder or worse turning into a sticky gue... the latter especially bad for a tape deck! Now I recall the tapes used.. a cream-grey (yuk) colour, with little squares or rectangles, 1 on each side at the bottom and right of each face. Red printing?? I have other software on the same tapes and it was the pressure pad which gave me problems. It's a super cheap tape with the crude pressure pad bonded to the magnet shield in a cheap and nasty one piece effort. Bloody awful for tape/head contact... I bet if you re-house that 3rd tape (@spookt) into a TDK/maxell shell it'll work somewhat better.. I hope! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 27, 2011 Share Posted June 27, 2011 Well it's not just the pads, if you look at the tape you can tell it's clearly cheap and inferior, plus they are pretty long, which for aging tape players is a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted June 27, 2011 Share Posted June 27, 2011 Yep, everything about those cassettes regarding quality is lousy. The don't even have the usual small stability wheels inside to help the tape run smoothly. A shame they chose them, I assume profit margin was ultimately the main concern. I doubt that they thought about 25 years later some guys would like to archive the content from these cassettes... By the way guys, I looked through my tapes yesterday and found a similar type of publication on tape called 'Atari User' - volume 1 no 9 from 1986. (on a better type of tape) Is anyone collecting/archiving those? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 27, 2011 Share Posted June 27, 2011 Atari User was one of the main magazines for 8 bit users in the UK, the quality of those tapes is a lot better, I don't know of anyone archiving those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Have now got hold of two Atari Computing cassettes, No.3 and No.11. Am having major probs with Issue No.3 - the first program on each side won't load - seems to have a lower frequency header tone than normal which seems very odd. When I try to make a .CAS file of these two programs it fails with a 'framing error' on the first block. The other programs on each side are loading just fine. Anyone got any ideas..?? Has anyone else had problems loading the same - or is it just my tape is dud? Has anyone else got a copy of Issue 3 to try to load the first prog on each side? Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Here's what I have (I no longer have the tapes) I just copied (most of?) the files and saved them to disk... AtariComputingTapes1and3.ATR AtariComputingTapes5and9.ATR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Hi Bountybob, Thanks for posting those disk images, they will help fill a few gaps. I notice you had two files missing from your Issue 3 - these happen to be the same two I have trouble with, so perhaps all of the tapes were faulty...? Cheers! Porge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 Hi Guys, For Anyone who is interested, here are verified .CAS files of Atari Computing Issue 3. I managed to fix the Framing error which affected the first program on each side of my tapes, with the help of info in De Re Atari. Enjoy! AC3-1.zip AC3-2.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted July 30, 2011 Author Share Posted July 30, 2011 (edited) Hi Guys, For Anyone who is interested, here are verified .CAS files of Atari Computing Issue 3. I managed to fix the Framing error which affected the first program on each side of my tapes, with the help of info in De Re Atari. Enjoy! AC3-1.zip AC3-2.zip Nice work. I didn't have any issues with framing errors on issue 3 (just checked my cas files) but great work fixing them. Here are scans of the card that issue three came on if you're interested: Edited July 30, 2011 by spookt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 Nice work. I didn't have any issues with framing errors on issue 3 (just checked my cas files) but great work fixing them. Here are scans of the card that issue three came on if you're interested: I only ever had a few 2nd hand tapes, nice to see the cards after all these years :!: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porge Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 Thanks for posting those scans, Paul - haven't seen this in a loooong time. I now have Atari Computing Issue 11 ready in .CAS format - here are the files for all who are collecting Atari Computing: If any of you guys out there have any other issues, please let us know / post CAS images if you have any Thanks! AC11-1.zip AC11-2.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 If someone could create an ATR or two (1050 density ) with all the games on that would be cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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