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Creating Cassette Games from Wav Files


Tempest

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I've finally gotten my hands on a Exidy Sorcerer computer, and now I want to make some game tapes for it. It appears that many of the games have been dumped and are available online, but they're .wav or .mp4 files. What's the easiest way to turn these into real tapes? I assume I just have to hook a cassette deck up to the output of my PC and hit record. Are modern NOS cassette tapes ok or do I have to find some vintage ones?

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Get yourself the tape adapter like these: https://www.google.com/search?q=tape+adapter&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Plug it in the tape player and other end to speaker out or headphone out on PC and use your PC to play the wave files.

I'm not familiar with Exidy Sorcerer computers, but this method works fine on ZX81 and Atari 800.

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Get yourself the tape adapter like these: https://www.google.com/search?q=tape+adapter&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Plug it in the tape player and other end to speaker out or headphone out on PC and use your PC to play the wave files.

I'm not familiar with Exidy Sorcerer computers, but this method works fine on ZX81 and Atari 800.

 

I'm looking for something that doesn't need to be plugged into a computer all the time.

 

I guess I'm mostly concerned about the tape itself. Have they changed the composition of the tape over the years or is it still good to go with these old systems?

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Like @theloon wrote, you can use any audio player to playback the WAV files, PSP, Phone, MP3 player etc.

 

If you really want to go old school, then you need some kind of tape recorder to transfer them over. You would need to play with the audio level to get it right.

 

I did not use tapes for long time so I'm not sure, but I thing there are only 3 types of tapes: Regular, Metal and Chrome. I think Metal and Chrome gives you better fidelity.

 

This is what I did:

Edited by amiman99
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I seem to recall that metal and chrome are great for music, but not so much for data. I may be wrong though and it is just that you're throwing pearls for the swines to use the higher quality tapes. Regular ferrochrome tapes should work perfectly well. You may have to fiddle a bit with volume settings, both on the PC sound card when you record the WAV to tape, and on the tape recorder when you play it back. Computers often want it loud, although not extremely loud.

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It seems like some computers run "ripped" tapes better than others. With my MC-10 and Timex 1000, I've just recorded .wav files straight onto tape and the computer reads the tapes perfectly. With the TRS-80 and TRS-80 Color, it tends not to work as well for some reason. I don't know if it's the kind of cassettes I used or the volume settings or what, but your mileage may vary.

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The MP3 player option is worth considering, so is a portable CD player if you've got one from the earlier days. Real tapes of course are more authentic, but the other options appear easier to get up and running, in particular if you've got a small MP3 player with USB. I've got a few of those, which makes it very easy to load it with WAVs and replace as desired.

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It seems like some computers run "ripped" tapes better than others. With my MC-10 and Timex 1000, I've just recorded .wav files straight onto tape and the computer reads the tapes perfectly. With the TRS-80 and TRS-80 Color, it tends not to work as well for some reason. I don't know if it's the kind of cassettes I used or the volume settings or what, but your mileage may vary.

I've had the same sort of experience. My C64 works fine with whatever tapes I throw at it, my TI-99/As (all 3 of them) however...

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