Name
cassette - data cassette image manipulator for xtrs TRS-80 emulator
Syntax
cassette
Description
To control the emulated cassette used by xtrs, a file called
".cassette.ctl" in the current directory keeps track of what file is
currently "loaded" as the cassette tape and the current position within
that file. The cassette shell script provides a way to manipulate this
file; typing "help" at its prompt shows its commands. You may use this
script to load and position cassette tape files. The operation works
very much like an actual tape recorder.
This manual page also describes the image formats that the emulator
supports and their limitations.
Commands
pos generates a status message including the filename being used as the
cassette image and the current position within the image, in bytes.
load [filename] changes the cassette image currently being used to the
file specified, and resets the position counter to zero.
type typename tells the emulator what type of image is loaded. Usually
this is detected from the file extension, but you can override the
detected value with this command. The supported types are listed in
the next section.
rew [position] changes the position counter to the position specified.
If no position is given, the counter is reset to zero.
ff [position] changes the position counter to the position specified.
If no position is given, the counter is set to the end of the file.
quit exits the cassette shell script.
Types
xtrs supports several different types of cassette images, each of which
represents cassette data in a different format.
cas format is fairly compact and is compatible with other TRS-80
emulators that have cassette support. This format represents the bit
stream that (the emulator thinks) the TRS-80 cassette routines were
trying to save to the tape, not the actual electrical signals on the
tape.
On writing, the emulator monitors the values that the TRS-80 software
is sending to the cassette port and their timing, auto-recognizes
whether a 250-bps, 500-bps, or 1500-bps format is being written,
decodes the signals into a string of 0 and 1 bits, packs the bits into
bytes, and writes them to the cas file. On reading, the emulator auto-
detects whether software is trying to read at 250, 500, or 1500 bps and
encodes the 0’s and 1’s back into the signals that the TRS-80 software
is expecting. This somewhat roundabout method should work with most
TRS-80 cassette routines that read and write signals compatible with
the ROM cassette routines, but it may fail with custom routines that
are too different.
Note that generally nothing useful will happen if you try to write a
cas image at one speed and read it at another. There are differences
in the actual bit streams that standard TRS-80 software records at each
of the three different speeds, not just differences in encoding the
electrical signals on the tape. Thus an incoming bit stream that was
originally recorded at one speed will not be understood when read back
in at a different speed. For example, Level 2 Basic programs are
tokenized, while Level 1 Basic programs are not, and the two Basic
implementations record different binary information at the start of the
program and between lines. Also, when a file is saved at 1500 bps,
standard TRS-80 software puts an extra 0 bit after every 8 data bits,
and these extra bits are packed into the cas file along with the data
bits.
cpt format (for "cassette pulse train") encodes the exact values and
timing of the signals that the TRS-80 cassette routine sends to the
cassette output port to be recorded on the tape. Timing is to the
nearest microsecond. This format emulates a perfect, noise-free
cassette, so any cassette routines that even halfway worked on real
hardware should work with it.
wav format is a standard sound file format. The wav format is
intermediate in emulation accuracy between cas and cpt. It does
represent actual signals, not decoded bits, but its timing precision is
limited by the sample rate used. The default rate for new wav files is
44,100 Hz; you can change this with the -samplerate command line option
to xtrs.
You can play wav files written by xtrs through your sound card and hear
roughly what a real TRS-80 cassette sounds like. A real TRS-80 should
be able to read wav files written by xtrs if you copy them to a
cassette or connect the TRS-80 directly to the sound card’s output.
This feature has not been tested extensively, but it does seem to work,
at least for short programs.
xtrs can also read wav files. It can read back the wav files that it
writes without error. Reading wav files sampled from real cassettes is
more difficult because of the noise introduced, but in brief testing it
does seem to work. The signal processing algorithms used are very
crude, and better ones could probably do a better job of reading old,
noisy cassettes, but I don’t have any such cassettes to test with (and
I don’t know much about signal processing!). Help in this area would
be welcome.
The wav file parsing code has several limitations. Samples must be
8-bit mono, and the wav file must contain only one data chunk and no
extra optional RIFF chunks in the header. If you have a wav file whose
header xtrs rejects, try using sox(1) to convert it to a more vanilla
format.
direct format is similar to wav format, except that the samples go to
(or come from) your sound card directly, not a wav file. Direct format
requires the Open Sound System /dev/dsp device. Extending the code to
work with other sound interfaces would probably not be hard, but is
left as an exercise for the reader. Please send me the changes if you
do this.
debug format is the same as cpt format except that the data is written
in human-readable ASCII. The cassette output is assumed to be 0
initially. Each line of output gives a new value (0, 1, or 2), and the
amount of time (in microseconds) to wait before changing the output to
this value.
Authors
xtrs 1.0 was written by David Gingold and Alec Wolman. The current
version was revised and much extended by Timothy Mann (see http://tim-
mann.org/). An initial version of this man page, and the translation
from C-shell (cassette) to Bourne shell (cassette.sh), are due to
Branden Robinson.
cassette(1)