Erase a cassette tape?

[russg]

I've been trying to make a BASIC program to copy a single stage disk EXE/COM/XEX to Atari tape drive (1010).

I have some success, but as I continue to work on it, there are more and more errors.

I haven't done things with tape for a long time, but I seem to remember you need a fresh tape to

write successfully. As if old data on the tape can interfere with writing new data.

Is there a way to 'erase' a tape so it can be written again?

Also, these are 20 odd years old tapes, do they deteriorate with age? Maybe need to buy some new ones.

Edited October 26, 2013 by russg

[Rybags]

Tape drives have a built in erase head (at least those with Rec function).

 

If you're really fussy you could just use a normal drive and record with nothing as input.

 

Tapes can deteriorate with age. Also remember Atari goes best with shortish tapes (under 60 minutes) and generally good quality audio ones rather than data ones.

 

Not a good idea to use bulk erasers on magnetic media you want to use again. Those things can put a permanent bias in the media which can seriously degrade the quality of any future data written.

 

 

What I found back in the day though was that it's a good idea to provide a clean leader, ie don't just back up the tape and start writing freshly part way through an old save.

Also, the physical leader on the tape (non-recordable stuff) - if it's too long and you Rec right from the beginning you mightn't provide enough leader tone time on your save. Good idea there is to advance the tape a bit such that there's only a couple of inches of leader to play through before the actual recordable tape.

 

When the Atari OS starts a tape read, it actually ignores the first 5 seconds or so of whatever is there. So essentially you want at least 7 seconds or so of leader tone (otherwise you can use the pause button technique but such intervention becomes an annoyance).

Edited October 27, 2013 by Rybags

[BillC]

I've been trying to make a BASIC program to copy a single stage disk EXE/COM/XEX to Atari tape drive (1010).

I have some success, but as I continue to work on it, there are more and more errors.

I haven't done things with tape for a long time, but I seem to remember you need a fresh tape to

write successfully. As if old data on the tape can interfere with writing new data.

Is there a way to 'erase' a tape so it can be written again?

Also, these are 20 odd years old tapes, do they deteriorate with age? Maybe need to buy some new ones.

Tape decks do have a small erase head just before the record/playback head, but it's possible for it to have problems. There are bulk erasers, they were more common before CD/DVD, the ones made to erase video tapes would do a quick job of erasing a standard compact cassette.

 

The Atari tapee drives were designed for normal-BIAS tapes, keep this in mind if buying new tapes. I am including a link to a Canadian company that still sells compact audio cassettes in lengths from 16 to 122 minutes.

http://www.duplication.ca/shop/Audio-Cassettes/

[Andromeda Stardust]

Is there a way to 'erase' a tape so it can be written again?

Get a big assed neodymium magnet and slap the cassette tape against it several times front and back.

 

Alternately, you can build a deguasser from homemade materials. Get a big cardboard tube (must not be conductive) large enough to pass the cassette tape through. Wrap heavy gauge insulated wire around it many times. Connect one end of the wire to a power factor correction capacitor. Connect the other end of the wire and the opposite pole of the capacitor to a wall plug. Plug it in and slowly slide the cassette tape through the tube a couple of times. You can also coil the wire into a larger loop (about 1 foot diameter) and use it as a manual deguasser which you can effectively use to remove spots from a CRT screen and restore the picture. Keep the deguasser far, far away from any tapes or discs you want to keep.

 

DO NOT USE A DEGUASSER TO ERASE FLOPPY DISCS!!! It will remove the tracking info and make the disc unreadable and unformatable.

 

:skull:

HIGH VOLTAGE/CURRENT FROM A WALL OUTLET CAN KILL! IF YOU DECIDE TO BUILD A HOMEMADE DEGUASSER, I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE, INJURY, LOSS OF LIFE OR PERSONAL PROPERTY THAT MAY RESULT FROM ITS USE OR MISUSE!!!

 

= = = = = = =

 

And now for a much safer way to erase a tape: Put it in the record end of a dual cassette deck. Use the tape dubbing function with nothing in the playback deck.

Edited October 27, 2013 by stardust4ever

[russg]

Tape decks do have a small erase head just before the record/playback head, but it's possible for it to have problems. There are bulk erasers, they were more common before CD/DVD, the ones made to erase video tapes would do a quick job of erasing a standard compact cassette.

 

The Atari tapee drives were designed for normal-BIAS tapes, keep this in mind if buying new tapes. I am including a link to a Canadian company that still sells compact audio cassettes in lengths from 16 to 122 minutes.

http://www.duplication.ca/shop/Audio-Cassettes/

Thanks to all three who posted answers to my question. I'm ordering 15 (minimum order) normal bias 40 minute (20 per side) audio tapes.

[1050]

DO NOT USE A DEGUASSER TO ERASE FLOPPY DISCS!!! It will remove the tracking info and make the disc unreadable and unformatable.

I happened to have purchased a reel to reel tape bulk eraser/general purpose degausser way back when they were still for sale and have used it without penalty on every type of floppy I need to. Granted, MS-DOS does take it's sweet time starting to format one of those, but soon enough it just starts chunking out the tracks and does a fine job of it. Forget Windows for this job, even 9x is borked, boot to DOS mode or go fish on the PC. The Atari just hops on and goes at it just like any other disk with no differences in the end either. Similar results are had with your magnet suggestion too. Floppy and cassette drives alike erase immediately before recording and both using high enough frequency signals to leave the media in a neutral state just before it undergoes the recording head.

 

The bulk eraser is supposed to be removed from the area of the tape in circular motions gradually increasing the distance so as to leave the media in a neutral state. At that point only you release the push on momentary button and let the five pound thing cool down some. The point of this according to the instructions was not to do with making a recording that lasted longer, it only had to do with background hiss in the unrecorded areas. That noise will alternate noticeably unless left in the neutral state, apparently I was supposed to be a professional of some sort or the other who might care about that sort of thing. Instead of some idiot turning Johnny Carson red, blue, purple and orange with it.

 

You may need to try erasing with even stronger fields if you wind up with an unusable floppy, maybe that's where your slightly askew advice/experience comes from? I've had to do that much myself even with the proper toys, but not very often. Windows is another possible reason you came away with that impression. Absolutely the most horrible floppy support possible. Read twice, write once, and Windows wants to format it. Boot to DOS mode to take a look at the disk's contents and sure enough trashed. Use DOS mode for the reads and writes and you get to play all day long and nothing ever goes bad with the floppy.

[Rybags]

Atari disks aren't hard-sectored, in fact most of the drives don't even use the index hole.

 

The danger of bulk erasers from my gathering is that they can put a strong bias on the media which subsequent recording doesn't necessarily reverse properly where needed so you end up with errors in the data.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yeah, I didn't have a proper degausser so I just rubbed some strong magnets all over the floppy, possibly magnetizing the trap door in the process. The disk did not work after that.

 

I have had horrible experiences with floppies when I first started college in 1999. Once I was typing my paper in MS Word saving directly to diskette instead of my hard drive (stupid I know) took the disk out went to my Comp I class and popped it in the computer lab to print out - GONE!!!

 

Another time I had a disk go corrupt and finally did a full format at the DOS prompt, it said I had like 236000 bytes in bad sectors or some BS, then I did a full format again and it said I had like 114000 bytes in bad sectors, then I did another full format and there were zero bad sectors. WTF???

 

Also I borked a few 1.44Mb floppies by attempting to force format them at 720Kb which rendered the disk unusable. Attempting to reformat it correctly absolutely did not work.

 

And then the abort? retry? fail? errors...

 

Either they built the drives and media a lot better in the 80s than the late 90s, or I pity the people who actually had to rely on that stuff. I used to say they were called floppies because they always "flopped" when you needed them the most.

 

I quickly started using CD-Rs and CD-RW for backup when I got my new PC in 1999, but the CD-ROM only drives in the computer lab wouldn't read the CD-RW discs at all, plus I needed something tangible I could write data to in the labs. I quickly came to the conclusion that floppy drives were unreliable, so after a while I got a USB powered Iomega Zip drive and carried it with me everywhere. When flash drives came out they were like $100 for 128 Megabytes, or I could buy a 250Mb Zip disk for $10, so the Zip drive seemed like a wise investment at the time. People thought it was odd that I was carrying around some funky Zip disk instead of a flash drive, but flash drives were still too expensive. Fast forward a couple more years and I bought my first true flash drive: a 1Gb USB Sandisk online for $70. I've been using flash drives ever since. Now I've got a 32Gb USB3 that I paid $30 for at retail.

Edited October 27, 2013 by stardust4ever

[snicklin]

If anyone is trying to source cassette tapes, probably a good place to find used tapes in the UK would be at car-boot sales or at your local equivalent if living elsewhere. Do they still do the "Sperrmull" days in Germany?

[Kyle22]

There are many places to get cheap cassettes, including here: http://www.cheap-batteries.com/p/C30.html

 

and here http://tapeline.info/v2/blank-audio-cassettes.html?page=all

[russg]

There are many places to get cheap cassettes, including here: http://www.cheap-batteries.com/p/C30.html

 

and here http://tapeline.info/v2/blank-audio-cassettes.html?page=all

Thanks for the sources. They are sorta wholesale. The Canada one has a $30 minimum and the other wants to close out 200,000 cassettes. Ha Ha.

I appreciate the info. I was using a 90 minute Type II ("CrO2 High Bias High Power Uniaxial 2000 Gauss), whatever that means. I have a SONY

High Fidelity Type I, Normal Bias 120 µs EQ 60 minute. I will try it next time. If I still get errors, I'll maybe buy something.

I found out my tape deck doesn't work, probably busted belts. Haven't used it in years.

Edited October 27, 2013 by russg

[Kyle22]

Sorry, I didn't see the quantity thing. It looks like 100 minimum. Although, that's only $30, maybe ebay the excess?

 

Anyway, the Normal Bias should be what you need. I don't think the Atari drives are biased for Chrome.

 

-K

[russg]

Sorry, I didn't see the quantity thing. It looks like 100 minimum. Although, that's only $30, maybe ebay the excess?

 

Anyway, the Normal Bias should be what you need. I don't think the Atari drives are biased for Chrome.

 

-K

I got a used tape deck and erased my SONY normal bias tape (run in record with no input). My program goes all the way without errors now. I just need to work on it some more. I also have some new

tapes on order.

[Kyle22]

Good, I hope it works for you.

[Andromeda Stardust]

And now for a much safer way to erase a tape: Put it in the record end of a dual cassette deck. Use the tape dubbing function with nothing in the playback deck.

 

I got a used tape deck and erased my SONY normal bias tape (run in record with no input). My program goes all the way without errors now. I just need to work on it some more. I also have some new

tapes on order.

Worked like a charm, didn't it?

[russg]

 

Worked like a charm, didn't it?

Yes, it solved the errors I was getting. Thanks and thanks Kyle22.

I've added some USR calls for disk read and tape write. I just need to learn more specifically how a cassette binary load works. I have the 'Techincal Reference Notes', which describes the binary load in seven steps.