+Fred_M Posted May 30 Share Posted May 30 I am repairing a lot of old 1010 tape recorders and in one of them I found this interesting upgrade. AFAIK it is not a Rambit upgrade. It is probably European, maybe Polish? Does someone recognize this board and can tell what it is? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted May 30 Share Posted May 30 intriguing, looks like some components have been removed to link the mod-board in. was the trimpot accessible from the exterior? if not, it would likely be a 1-time calibration procedure what are those mysterious looking components on the mod-board? the 6x metallic monolithic ones 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 30 Share Posted May 30 (edited) that's a pll FSK/demodulater/tone decoder, transistor, resistors, variable resistor, caps. so a decoder with adjustment board Edited May 30 by _The Doctor__ 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 14 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said: that's a pll FSK/demodulater/tone decoder, transistor, resistors, variable resistor, caps. so a decoder with adjustment board The metal looking devices are capacitors. Maybe for high speed decoding or the FSK demodulator went faulty and was replaced by this? I found the datasheet for this chip EXAR XR-2211. Looks like they are still available to purchase. XR-2211 FSK Demodulator.pdf Circuit diagram may look something like this taken from the datasheet:- 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted May 31 Author Share Posted May 31 (edited) 22 hours ago, xrbrevin said: was the trimpot accessible from the exterior? if not, it would likely be a 1-time calibration procedure No, it is not accessible. 7 hours ago, TZJB said: Maybe for high speed decoding To me, it looks like a mod for high speed transfer, that is why I compared it to the Rambit mod. A British mod to get high speed transfer tape software. Maybe it is one of the Polish or Czech "Turbo" mods? I can not find much info about them online and AFAIK they were made for XC12 tape recorders. I have sent pictures to one of my Polish Atari friends, hopefully he knows more. Edited May 31 by Fred_M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted May 31 Author Share Posted May 31 I am still searching the internet, but finally found a hit to something that looks similar to this interface. I am no technical expert and I cannot read technical diagrams, also this interface was intended for the joystick port. I found this article from Antic: https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n5/wefaxinterface.html It is about a WEFAX interface for a.o. Atari 8-bit computers and it uses the XR-2211 demodulator. Originally it has an audio in connector, so it can be connected to a stand alone tape recorder. Maybe this interface connects directly to the audio of the 1010??? Hopefully someone with more technical knowledge than me, can compare the diagram with my pictures 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 1 hour ago, Fred_M said: I am still searching the internet, but finally found a hit to something that looks similar to this interface. I am no technical expert and I cannot read technical diagrams, also this interface was intended for the joystick port. I found this article from Antic: https://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n5/wefaxinterface.html It is about a WEFAX interface for a.o. Atari 8-bit computers and it uses the XR-2211 demodulator. Originally it has an audio in connector, so it can be connected to a stand alone tape recorder. Maybe this interface connects directly to the audio of the 1010??? Hopefully someone with more technical knowledge than me, can compare the diagram with my pictures 🙂 This is a Weather Fax decoder and a different application for the same demodulator chip. It requires an amateur radio receiver tuned to the correct frequency for Wefax in order to receiver weather fax pictures. https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/WEFAX 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 i wonder if the 1010 mod is for loading in modulated audio data - like sinclair, amstrad, acorn etc computers used? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overange Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 Looking very quickly at this mod and the schematic, its appears to bypass the digital out part of the amplifier part of the circuit and replace it with is own, with out going into to much detail, I suspect its to improve the digital signal going to the computer. Red Xs are showing the components removed and blue would be the input and green the output of the small board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 43 minutes ago, Overange said: Looking very quickly at this mod and the schematic, its appears to bypass the digital out part of the amplifier part of the circuit and replace it with is own, with out going into to much detail, I suspect its to improve the digital signal going to the computer. Red Xs are showing the components removed and blue would be the input and green the output of the small board. I agree. The board has completely replaced the inbuilt demodulator. I suppose the big question is, does it work? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overange Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 24 minutes ago, TZJB said: I agree. The board has completely replaced the inbuilt demodulator. I suppose the big question is, does it work? When I was looking at the cassette schematic, I noticed that the write/data in signal is connected to the head with practically no filtering or amplification. The Read/Data Section would be performing a series of high and low pass filtering to ensure the data signal is near on clean as it can get, I am sure out there someone would of created a digital cassette to pure data / poormans DSP circuit using a small microcontroller. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overange Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 Maybe something like this? https://www.mikekohn.net/micro/tape_data_recorder.php 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overange Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 This is me right now lol Another thing I am so surprised is that for the Atari Machines we do not have digital version of the tape players like the Amstrad CPC464 Tzxduino Maxduino I have seen in the past it was mentioned you would have to utilise the motor commands via the SIO, but again, when looking at that schematic, it is very similar to the way Amstrad control there cassette players, It would need more investigation to see if the SIO motor command goes high or low to start and the same for the Amstrad does it goes high or low?? So maybe its more simple that was first thought and maybe we could have an Atari SIO digital tape player??? This is a cool retro fit into the existing Amstrad CPC646 cassette players https://retrofixer.it/en/amstrad-cpc464-tzxduino/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 1 hour ago, Overange said: When I was looking at the cassette schematic, I noticed that the write/data in signal is connected to the head with practically no filtering or amplification. The Read/Data Section would be performing a series of high and low pass filtering to ensure the data signal is near on clean as it can get, I am sure out there someone would of created a digital cassette to pure data / poormans DSP circuit using a small microcontroller. There is both an audio amplifier and data amplifier and op-amp data limiting filters in a 410/1010:- I looked at the 410 diagram and this one better explains operation. 2 hours ago, Overange said: I have seen in the past it was mentioned you would have to utilise the motor commands via the SIO, but again, when looking at that schematic, it is very similar to the way Amstrad control there cassette players, It would need more investigation to see if the SIO motor command goes high or low to start and the same for the Amstrad does it goes high or low?? So maybe its more simple that was first thought and maybe we could have an Atari SIO digital tape player??? This is a cool retro fit into the existing Amstrad CPC646 cassette players https://retrofixer.it/en/amstrad-cpc464-tzxduino/ The Atari circuit looks much better. I don't think that this CPC464 tape emulator would work with an Atari as it is emulating a mono audio device whereas the Atari utilises stereo in order to play a music or narrator audio track as the tape is loading. SDrive-Max and other modern SIO devices already support the CAS file format, which emulate cassette tape playback devices, plus I am not sure that recording tape data at 600 Baud is necessary any more. Although I realise that some people might just like to hear the tones! SIO motor control SIO pin 8 is normally low and goes high to enable the motor so is logical in that respect. Personally I think that tapes are very slow and unreliable for data storage so I prefer the faster disk format, unless the cassette tape is specifically designed for audio such as language courses for instance. Remember that tape was used as a data storage medium for a reason. It is cheap! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overange Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 12 minutes ago, TZJB said: The Atari circuit looks much better. I don't think that this CPC464 tape emulator would work with an Atari as it is emulating a mono audio device whereas the Atari utilises stereo in order to play a music or narrator audio track as the tape is loading. All you would be using is the single channel, so mono would be fine. I do not recall any digitised Atari Cassettes containing the audio files? 12 minutes ago, TZJB said: SDrive-Max and other modern SIO devices already support the CAS file format, which emulate cassette tape playback devices, plus I am not sure that recording tape data at 600 Baud is necessary any more. Although I realise that some people might just like to hear the tones! SIO motor control SIO pin 8 is normally low and goes high to enable the motor so is logical in that respect. Personally I think that tapes are very slow and unreliable for data storage so I prefer the faster disk format, unless the cassette tape is specifically designed for audio such as language courses for instance. Remember that tape was used as a data storage medium for a reason. It is cheap! Very true, and TBH if any thing was created, it would be a just for fun exercise. So imagine retro fitting a 1010 Tape drive with a version of the SD Max, like what they have done with CPC464 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted June 1 Author Share Posted June 1 Hi guys! Thank you all for trying to help me. Sadly I cannot find any upgrade that uses this demodulator (besides the wefax interface, but as I understand you correctly it cannot be a wefax interface). On Polish and Czech sites there is quite a bit of info about their tape recorder upgrades. A good example is this one: http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/KSO-Turbo-2000-Turbo-Blizzard-AST-Atari-Super-Turbo.aspx The last downloadable file (standardy_turbo.pdf (8,53 mb) shows various diagrams of different "turbo" upgrades. As far as I can see there is none which uses a XR2211. By request of my good friend @ivop I made some new pictures. So I am sharing these with you too. I hope these will help us a bit Thanks again! click to enlarge 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted June 1 Author Share Posted June 1 5 hours ago, TZJB said: I agree. The board has completely replaced the inbuilt demodulator. I suppose the big question is, does it work? I have finished checking (cleaning, replacing belts, replace broken buttons and so on) all the 1010s. I will test all of them including this one tomorrow. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 1 hour ago, Overange said: All you would be using is the single channel, so mono would be fine. I do not recall any digitised Atari Cassettes containing the audio files? Very true, and TBH if any thing was created, it would be a just for fun exercise. So imagine retro fitting a 1010 Tape drive with a version of the SD Max, like what they have done with CPC464 I do have some language courses on cassette tape that use both channels. There are probably more tapes than you may think:- Of course some people record their own music on the second channel while they wait for the program to load! Also found this on Atariwiki:- https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Articles#section-Articles-VoiceAndDataCassettes I think the 1010 SDrive-MAX conversion has probably already been done as it has the advantage of two SIO sockets available rather than the usual single cable, similar to the Atari XC12 data recorder which gives a dead leg to the SIO bus. 24 minutes ago, Fred_M said: I have finished checking (cleaning, replacing belts, replace broken buttons and so on) all the 1010s. I will test all of them including this one tomorrow. Look forward to seeing your results. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted June 1 Share Posted June 1 (edited) Hello guys Maybe @dl7ukk knows what it is, he did a lot of research into tape speeders. (Schau dir bitte das Bild im ersten Bericht hier oben mal an und auch hier. Vielleicht erkennst Du die Erweiterung) Sincerely Mathy Edited June 1 by Mathy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted June 1 Author Share Posted June 1 1 hour ago, TZJB said: I do have some language courses on cassette tape that use both channels. There are probably more tapes than you may think:- Yes, there are quite a few of them. And the atari 8-bit can even listen to the audio channel. For example the "An invitation to programming" courses include a beep on the audio track to let the (basic) program know that it has to continue to the next "slide". That's why I thought it might have been a Wefax interface (like the one in Antic magazine, but then in a 1010) so that people could put an audio recording of the weather transmission into the 1010. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted June 2 Author Share Posted June 2 19 hours ago, TZJB said: Look forward to seeing your results. Good luck! It is working fine, it loads and saves like normal. If this is some kind of speed loader, it will probably need some software to activate it (like the Rambit and the Turbo). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baktra Posted June 2 Share Posted June 2 You can try the Turbo 2600 software. The PCB appears to be a FSK demodulator replacement, perhaps it will handle higher transfer speeds than the original one (1200 bps and more). TURGEN supports Turbo 2600 through its Standard Plus plugin. No software is needed, each T2600 file begins with a standard tape boot file. Make no mistake, I do not claim the PCB is Turbo 2600. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Fred_M Posted June 3 Author Share Posted June 3 @ivop made a diagram of the PCB. Thanks Ivo! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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