Vic20!! er.. now what. :-)

[desiv]

Talk about what you learn here...

 

The SC3000 and SC3000-H... (I was googling..)

 

I never knew Sega released a computer!!! I missed that one somehow..

 

KUAL!!!

 

Time for more historical research! :-)

 

desiv

[Sharky]

Talk about what you learn here...

 

The SC3000 and SC3000-H...  (I was googling..)

 

I never knew Sega released a computer!!!  I missed that one somehow..

 

KUAL!!!  

 

Time for more historical research! :-)

 

desiv

 

Yes I had the hard-white keyboard one for about 5 months, only about 10 at the time. The rubber-keyboard one is hell.

 

Wasnt popular, I dont know why, maybe cause it wouldnt work without a BASIC Language cartridge.

 

Had some good cartridge games, such as Star Jacker, Congo Bongo, but it have some of the nicest Graphic/Text Adventures software on cassettes.

 

Still waitin for the ultimate SC-3000 Emulator thats emulates the Tape activitys so I can play em again.

 

[Nukey Shay]

But I didnt know you could make them work on a Vic-20 though as  the Vic20 Machine itself supplies power and some sort of control to the datacassette.

The pins that would supply power to the Datasette are simply not connected in the 3rd party cables...and there are 3 connections at the end of it (seperate plugs for microphone & headphone...as well as a smaller plug that goes to the tape player's remote - that starts & stops the tape under Vic20 control).

[Sharky]

Im sort of seeing the picture now, you would just connect the audio and microphone wires to the correct pins of the vic-20 (Might need a bit of home soldering there). And then let the foreign Tape Recorder itself draw its power from elsewhere.

 

That may just work i guess.

 

I suppose you could use anything thats a media player in that way with a volume control and with audio leads, even a VCR maybe with video tapes.

 

As long as the Vic-20 recieves the correct flow of data signals.

 

[desiv]

Yep, the only other pin is the control pin. That basically controls the PAUSE feature of the tape deck.

 

Lots of tape decks have a jack for a remote pause button, so you can connect that one too..

 

So the tape deck would have it's own power, you'd connect the mic, headset, and pause from the deck to the VIC-20.

 

If your casette deck runs on +5 volts, you could power it from the VIC also. :-)

 

Of course, with a PC, there's no 'pause', but if you really wanted to (and with the X1541 cables there's no need to) you could wire that pin to something that could read state (parallel port??) and use a plugin to pause/play winamp when it sensed the state change.

 

Of course, the X1541 cables allow you to emulate a disk drive, not a tape deck so it's even more flexible. I'll just try my adapter (whenever my tape drive shows up) as a test. If I can "play" the WAV files into the VIC, then I can see if it's worth putting on a tape. I'll just have to click PLAY on Mediaplayer myself.

 

desiv

[Han]

*bump* desiv have you gotten the adaptor to work? I couldn’t get mine to work on my C64. I did get hold of an old tape recorder yesterday. And I have tried to record my TAP file onto it. But my C64 still refuses to load it, it just stops at the beginning of the tape ....

[desiv]

Still waiting for my EBay order to get to me, the shipper delayed, but it should be soon!!!

 

I'll let you know!!

 

desiv

[desiv]

OK, update...

 

Good news.. I got my stuff!!!

 

OK, I hook up one of the tape drives, try to load a tape.

 

Nothing. Try the Adapter.. Nothing..

 

OK, this order had 2 tape drives...

 

Try the other one.. Try the same tape..

 

Starts loading.. Then chokes.. Hmmm

 

Try the adapter.. Starts loading, then chokes.. OK, progress..

 

Do what I should have done and clean the tape heads. :-)

 

Load the tape, it loads the game!!

 

Try the Adapter, "Loading Pinball 1." something somthing.. :-)

Error..

 

Hmm. Set volume down LOW..

Loading, and I get a screen!!! Yeay!! Then I notice Media player is still playing, but the tape deck has stopped. Ooopppss..

I stop media player.. Eventually the screen changes and the tape drive starts again.. Ooopps.. Have to watch those pauses...

 

Reset.. Start again...

 

Start loading, start MediaPlayer.. Starts loading game, screen comes up, tape drive stops spinning, I PAUSE MediaPlayer.. So far so good.

I wait. The screen goes black, tape starts spinning, I click PLAY on MediaPlayer.. And wait... and wait.. Then I see the screen coming back. Wobbly and such, don't hear anything, so I pause, then I look.. still spinning.. Ooopps. PLAY on Media Player.. OK, a bit more flashing, then the tape stops spinning, screen settles, I hit F1 to play.

Score changes or something! Yeay!

 

But no ball.. hmmm try all keys.. still no spinning.. hmm.. Maybe I timed it a bit wrong. Still pretty good for a test...

 

Or so I thought.

 

I restart the Vic.. And the screen is B/W, with just 2 smallish bars of green on each side of the screen. Uh Oh..

Never saw that before..

 

Reset Vic. Same thing..

 

Reset again, there are now a bunch of green bars on the side, almost look like they are trying to vert sync.. Then they settle to the 2 bars..

hmmm..

 

Try again, and good green screen!! Whew.. weird..

 

Try again.. 2 green bars.. :-(

 

Now, once I get the solid green, which I can, with a few (3-7 so far) resets, it stays solid green.

 

But I think maybe I did something bad to my Vic chip or something? It works, but now it's taking resets to get the color right...

 

So, it might (???????) be that pumping too much volume thru the tape deck could damage the chip???? I can't think of much else, unless the tape drive itself did it, and I doubt it.. With or without the tape deck hooked up, I have to reset a few times to get it..

 

I suppose it could be my homemade video cable, but I've been using that for a few days (over a week, although with not games or tape drive, I admit I didn't use it all that much), and it hasn't had any trouble. Just today, and now pretty consistant.

 

Oh, the dangers of curiosity.. :-) :-)

 

Well, it's not too bad, and I can live like this until I find another Vic-20 for a good (cheap) price to replace it. But I don't think I'll do any more testing like this until I get a spare good one. Then I'll be more comfortable abusing this one here..

 

Actually, there were 2 video leads on the Vic-20 video cable. Composite HIGH and Composite LOW. Maybe I'll try the other one (I don't remember now which I used. ).

 

Oh well.. Looks like it works, just maybe not a good idea.

 

desiv

[desiv]

er...

AND.. (Yep, more..)

 

I just realized, I can't load from tape anymore...

(Carts work, as long as I reset a few times to get the color OK)

 

Yep, I broke it.. :-)

 

Oh well, my advice, don't try this at home.. :-) Or at least, start with VERY LOW volume, but since I'm not sure it was just volume, I wouldn't recommend it...

 

I'll open my Vic in a bit and see if I can see any visible damage, but if it was just some little piece inside the Vic chip?? Oh well...

 

I notice some guy on EBay routinely selling NEW Vic-20s! (They still make them?? :-) ) But I think I'll wait a bit. All spent out on other stuff anyway..

 

desiv

 

(Moral? Don't experiment with anything you don't mind losing. :-) )

------------------------------------------

 

Update: I opened it up, looked but didn't see anything. Pressed down on all the socketed chips. Re-cleaned all the contacts.

 

And since, I haven't had any more video problems. Loaded a game from tape twice. (Haven't tried the PC trick again. :-) )

 

I don't know if it was a contact, or what??

 

Oh well, I'll be nice to it for a bit, but I'll be back at the tape interface. However, the pause being used alot, means it's less and less worth using it to test things before I put em on tape.