The fact that you were able to load 3 out of 4 tapes first try, that's 35-40 year old media, shows how reliable Commodore's tape system is. "Proprietary" isn't always an evil word when it comes with such great advantages :) It's also really nice to just have the single cable for data and power. There are also adapters to hook a regular tape deck up to the C64 but then you're in the same boat as the Tandy and Speccy with way more tape loading problems, just to save $5 or $10 on a cheaper tape deck. By the way, I've also had lots of problems with Alligata tapes; seems they made really poor choices with how they mastered their tapes compared to most other companies.
I was very happy that three of the games worked. I really like how well the Commodore Data Set works. After using it I wish other companies (Tandy) had invested in something similar.
It's like cooking a roast in the microwave. I did it once to show it could be done. It takes longer and is more complex. Personally I bought a tape player for this kind of use.
re: port 1 vs port 2, a general rule is that the later the game was released, the more likely it is to use port 2, so with Dizzy I would have guessed port 2.
Of course, then I would have been wrong with Hunchback since it used port 2 despite being a 1983 game :) But it's still a good general rule. Guess port 1 for games from 1982-1985 or so; guess port 2 for later games.
I had a tape drive, from my PET 2001 and used it for a year until I saved up for a 1541. First commercial game I ever bought was Avalon Hill Midway!, still have the tape. I used LOAD "*" and then go to the kitchen, make a sandwich, pour a drink and come back for the end of the load. :D @Canadian Retro Things Have you tried a SIDEKICK64 yet?
Thanks for sharing. I'm just now getting to play with a commodore. I came into computers during the A.O.L days and am finally getting my hands on some of the computers from the golden area. Your videos are a great help
Yes I definitely played all my commodore games from cassette back in 1985, a disk drive was too rich for my blood! Glad to see another Canadian retro fan. I'm from Winnipeg and heard about your channel from 8-bit show and tell. A few months ago I got one of those new "ZX Spectrum Next" computers from the kickstarter. Even though it "can" play games off tape it's so much nicer to just load the .tap files right off the built in SD card reader. I like retro, but a few modern conveniences are nice. I'll take modern storage media any day.
@TCPhil-Gaming The modern storage is pretty much a must have. I grew up with a CoCo and only had a tape drive. I like the old storage media but don't miss having to use it!
@@CanadianRetroThings I didn't get a disk drive for the C64 until about 1988. By that time most of the local Zellers and Kmart stores in Winnipeg were starting to only stock new C64 games on floppy. I moved onto the Amiga around 1991 until that died out in the mid 90s until the dark times of PC-compatibles only. I'm really enjoying this new Spectrum Next. As you know, the Speccy's weren't available to us in Canada and even if they had been the whole 50Hz PAL/NTSC thing would have made them incompatible anyhow. This new NEXT works good though; modern HDMI output and a lot of recent model TV's sold in Canada these days seem to work at 50Hz when fed a signal (that was almost unheard of in the CRT days) so no compatibility problems there.
Had the tape drive for my Vic20 as a kid but as soon as we got a C64 we went with the 1541. I have never tried a tape drive on a C64 - even now. The nightmares of tape games on my Vic20 still haunt me enough to never try it.
yes I remember when I had a VIc20 I always preferred the cartridge games over the cassettes just because of the loading times. The cartridge games were always better anyhow since they could much larger since they were mapped directly to the CPU's address space and didn't need to go into the Vic's small amount of RAM. It was the opposite on the C64 where the cartridge games were smaller and inferior to the Tape and especially the disk games since the C64 had so much RAM.
back in the day I could only afford a datasette with my Vic-20, those games still work Today exactly like the day I bought them. Cassette Tapes can be Very Reliable if you store them correctly and they are know to outlast every other median device to date.
6 minutes its not that bad on my current pc i got some games installed on an external hard drive and some games take over 6 minutes to load too. i heard that some c64 games took over 30 minutes to load but that seems to be wrong
The fact that you were able to load 3 out of 4 tapes first try, that's 35-40 year old media, shows how reliable Commodore's tape system is. "Proprietary" isn't always an evil word when it comes with such great advantages :) It's also really nice to just have the single cable for data and power. There are also adapters to hook a regular tape deck up to the C64 but then you're in the same boat as the Tandy and Speccy with way more tape loading problems, just to save $5 or $10 on a cheaper tape deck. By the way, I've also had lots of problems with Alligata tapes; seems they made really poor choices with how they mastered their tapes compared to most other companies.
I was very happy that three of the games worked. I really like how well the Commodore Data Set works. After using it I wish other companies (Tandy) had invested in something similar.
It's like cooking a roast in the microwave. I did it once to show it could be done. It takes longer and is more complex. Personally I bought a tape player for this kind of use.
I do like the fact that the original tape games don't have the extras added when someone cracks the game.
re: port 1 vs port 2, a general rule is that the later the game was released, the more likely it is to use port 2, so with Dizzy I would have guessed port 2.
Of course, then I would have been wrong with Hunchback since it used port 2 despite being a 1983 game :) But it's still a good general rule. Guess port 1 for games from 1982-1985 or so; guess port 2 for later games.
@@8_Bit Good to know! Normally I just keep 2 joysticks plugged in since I have about 15 Atari joysticks! 😁
I had a tape drive, from my PET 2001 and used it for a year until I saved up for a 1541. First commercial game I ever bought was Avalon Hill Midway!, still have the tape. I used LOAD "*" and then go to the kitchen, make a sandwich, pour a drink and come back for the end of the load. :D
@Canadian Retro Things Have you tried a SIDEKICK64 yet?
I have not tried a SIDEKICK64...yet! I did the same with my CoCo back when all I had was the tape drive.
every teenager should halfta ... makes them appreciate that SSD
I agree!
I, too, didn't have a Commodore until 3 years ago. Thanks for sharing
I do enjoy discovering all of the things I had not tried before!
Thanks for sharing. I'm just now getting to play with a commodore. I came into computers during the A.O.L days and am finally getting my hands on some of the computers from the golden area. Your videos are a great help
Thanks for watching, I'm glad you enjoy them.
Yes I definitely played all my commodore games from cassette back in 1985, a disk drive was too rich for my blood! Glad to see another Canadian retro fan. I'm from Winnipeg and heard about your channel from 8-bit show and tell. A few months ago I got one of those new "ZX Spectrum Next" computers from the kickstarter. Even though it "can" play games off tape it's so much nicer to just load the .tap files right off the built in SD card reader. I like retro, but a few modern conveniences are nice. I'll take modern storage media any day.
One of my play-throughs on my new Spectrum Next: ruclips.net/video/9m0AU6uF7RM/видео.htmlsi=tdUsOGIbjmOGGRMU
@TCPhil-Gaming The modern storage is pretty much a must have. I grew up with a CoCo and only had a tape drive. I like the old storage media but don't miss having to use it!
@@CanadianRetroThings I didn't get a disk drive for the C64 until about 1988. By that time most of the local Zellers and Kmart stores in Winnipeg were starting to only stock new C64 games on floppy. I moved onto the Amiga around 1991 until that died out in the mid 90s until the dark times of PC-compatibles only. I'm really enjoying this new Spectrum Next. As you know, the Speccy's weren't available to us in Canada and even if they had been the whole 50Hz PAL/NTSC thing would have made them incompatible anyhow. This new NEXT works good though; modern HDMI output and a lot of recent model TV's sold in Canada these days seem to work at 50Hz when fed a signal (that was almost unheard of in the CRT days) so no compatibility problems there.
Had the tape drive for my Vic20 as a kid but as soon as we got a C64 we went with the 1541. I have never tried a tape drive on a C64 - even now. The nightmares of tape games on my Vic20 still haunt me enough to never try it.
It was worse on the Tandy Color Computer, the tape drive was VERY touchy!
yes I remember when I had a VIc20 I always preferred the cartridge games over the cassettes just because of the loading times. The cartridge games were always better anyhow since they could much larger since they were mapped directly to the CPU's address space and didn't need to go into the Vic's small amount of RAM. It was the opposite on the C64 where the cartridge games were smaller and inferior to the Tape and especially the disk games since the C64 had so much RAM.
back in the day I could only afford a datasette with my Vic-20, those games still work Today exactly like the day I bought them. Cassette Tapes can be Very Reliable if you store them correctly and they are know to outlast every other median device to date.
My ratio of cassette failure to floppy disk failure is definitely lower.
6 minutes its not that bad on my current pc i got some games installed on an external hard drive and some games take over 6 minutes to load too. i heard that some c64 games took over 30 minutes to load but that seems to be wrong
The longest load time for a tape game I have encountered (there may be longer ones) is a little under 20 minutes.