Simon Carter Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 Just bought myself a couple of the Conversational cassette collections (French and Spanish) and it got me thinking. They must be one of the few occasions that software was better on tape than on disk Any others? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 Pretty much the same, like when you got a musical track on some (few) games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 some games had better versions on tape, seems more data fit on them than a 90k disk with DOS et al on it. More could fit in memory without a DOS occupying precious ram too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 The Talk & Teach Series (Dorsett Educational) are good. Voice and Data. First real interactive home computer software. I still use tapes. I have xferred many now to disk. Some, I cannot get to disk. Patience Weedhopper.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigsBar Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 4 hours ago, Simon Carter said: Just bought myself a couple of the Conversational cassette collections (French and Spanish) and it got me thinking. They must be one of the few occasions that software was better on tape than on disk Any others? Since I guess we all grew up in the 80's & 90's when you know games were plentiful and tapes were cheap. discs were more expensive back then, and a simple dual tape ghetto blaster allowed you to "Legitimately" backup your mates tapes for archival reasons! so for pocket money you could quickly double your game collection Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 Tapes in the UK lied to us... they'd tell us things like Winter Games and Summer Games II were coming soon 🤣 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 The 8-Bit Guy just went to the Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. He highlighted the fact that there are manufacturers STILL making tape players. He showed some Emerson walkman types. That blew me away. I kept my walkman from the day, still have some tapes I sometimes play at work to drown out the BS. People think I am from the Stone Age. F()CK 'Em. DBM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 1 hour ago, gilsaluki said: He highlighted the fact that there are manufacturers STILL making tape players. They are, but today's mechanisms are pretty awful. Anyone looking to get a cassette player / recorder in this day and age would do well to find something in a thrift store or online that has the potential to work properly, or that actually does. Look for units made up to the late 1990s. There's a clear decline in quality across the board from Y2K onwards. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 Most likely correct about the crap made in XING ZAO PING PONG china.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye68 Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 Many people, including me, got States & Capitals as their first piece of non-cart software because it was part of the Educator Kit (410, BASIC cart, States & Capitals). I was disappointed to find out that other tapes didn't include an audio track hyping the program. The cheesy generic disco soundtrack was truly the icing on the cake. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 PDI made educational programs on cassette where the audio track was part of the instruction and testing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 2 hours ago, Hawkeye68 said: Many people, including me, got States & Capitals as their first piece of non-cart software because it was part of the Educator Kit (410, BASIC cart, States & Capitals). I was disappointed to find out that other tapes didn't include an audio track hyping the program. The cheesy generic disco soundtrack was truly the icing on the cake. I liked that States & Capitals Cassette. Classic. First time through I found out that I was just not that smart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baktra Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 5 hours ago, gilsaluki said: The 8-Bit Guy just went to the Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. He highlighted the fact that there are manufacturers STILL making tape players. He showed some Emerson walkman types. That blew me away. I kept my walkman from the day, still have some tapes I sometimes play at work to drown out the BS. People think I am from the Stone Age. F()CK 'Em. DBM. Wow, flutter, tangles, fast draining of the batteries, size as a brick. Well, yeah. At the time, i was happy to have one too. But not now. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steril707 Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 3 minutes ago, baktra said: Wow, flutter, tangles, fast draining of the batteries, size as a brick. Well, yeah. At the time, i was happy to have one too. But not now. I drive an old Alfa Spider from the 80ies, and use the tape deck in there. For that I keep an old tape deck at home as well. It's fun. But I concur, if I had the choice of using Youtube on my mobile or an old Walkman, I'd go for the mobile phone.. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zylon Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 I got lots of great games on tape, back then, that I wouldn't have been able to buy otherwise. My C2N got lots of miles on it, in the 80s. We had C= then. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 Aside from being slow, lot's of folks in the U.S. got soured on tapes by the lack of reliability of the 410. If we had units (then) as reliable as the 1010 and (even better) the XC-12, tapes might have had a better foothold here. And of course, Turbo options would have helped greatly. My first mod of my new Atari was to replace some resistors in my 410 as shown in Antic. ("tangle angles" by Carl Evans, April 1983 and Feb 1984) It wasn't a complete cure, but it definitely helped. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 8 hours ago, Steril707 said: I drive an old Alfa Spider from the 80ies Good choice - I used to have an '82 Really fun cars. 3 hours ago, zylon said: I got lots of great games on tape, back then, that I wouldn't have been able to buy otherwise. Same - the only software I could actually afford to purchase when I was a kid were budget titles on cassette. A lot of titles didn't even see disk releases at the time. Every great once in a while, nostalgia will take hold and I'll load up a cassette image of The Last V8 or similar via FujiNet. It's still slow, but at least the FujiNet loads it more reliably than any tape drive ever did. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zylon Posted January 30, 2023 Share Posted January 30, 2023 1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said: Good choice - I used to have an '82 Really fun cars. Same - the only software I could actually afford to purchase when I was a kid were budget titles on cassette. A lot of titles didn't even see disk releases at the time. Every great once in a while, nostalgia will take hold and I'll load up a cassette image of The Last V8 or similar via FujiNet. It's still slow, but at least the FujiNet loads it more reliably than any tape drive ever did. My "job" at the time, was to sweep a skating rink parking lot for 2 bucks per day on weekends. It didn't go far, lol 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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