blank screen during Datasette functions the norm?

[newTIboyRob]

I found my Datasette, yay!  It works perfectly. Just wondering if the following is what everyone experiences:

 

A)  A blank screen after pressing play and record while it's saving or even loading  (I ask because I didn't experience this with the DATAMASTER VIC-20 combo, so maybe it's different)

B)  During loading process, after it shows, e.g., FOUND TESTRUN, a pause for like 5 seconds, then a return to that blank screen while it finishing loading the program. (All is ok after that, as it loaded, I stopped it, and it finished/played fine.)

 

In another post, it was said in the VIC-20 steps that after saving you should turn the main power on then off again and continue the load process.  I tried it that way, as well as just keeping the main power on with the C64, and I noticed

no difference either way, not even in speed of data retrieval.  Is there any benefit actually to powering down the C64 here or does it not matter?

 

[boulinha]

This is normal in Commodore 64, but not on VIC20.

[carlsson]

Yes, due to timing issues the C64 needs to blank the screen when it loads. There is no reason to power cycle after a save, other than ensuring no program is in memory before you load one. You may as well type NEW or reset the computer (if you have no reset button, you can use SYS64738 on the C64 and SYS64802 on the VIC-20).

[Casey]

You can also press the Commodore key when the screen comes back and announces "FOUND whatever" and it will begin loading right then.  I think some versions of the 64 waited on that screen indefinitely until you did that, but later ones automatically proceed after some amount of time.