@@NoelsRetroLab I was about to say I'd love to see more regarding how fast you can load audio - then I got to the bit of the video where you said you'll be making a video about it. The video about how fast you can load from a cassette is the video that made me subscribe.
The Shift/RunStop key function on the C64 is inherited from the even older 1977 Commodore PET, which as you probably know was designed with tape in mind. The function is built into the screen editor which as far as I can see was copied wholesale into the VIC 20 and C64. Also, for some reason a lot of people in the UK (one of Commodores biggest markets outside the USA) also used tapes for the C64 (in the early 80s few people could afford disk drives, (possibly because of unfavorable exchange rates?) so most games were sold as cassette. It really wasn't until the late 80s that disk drives became cheap enough for the "average" game player to afford.
Yeah, price was a problem in the UK. IIRC the 1541 cost about as much as the 64 itself, so hurt its selling point of being relatively inexpensive and competitive with the other 8-bit micros. I suspect the culture surrounding the UK home computer boom was a bit different to the US computer scene too, which might have had an impact on the cost that each market was prepared to accept. I think cost was a problem even later in the C64's life, because the cost of a C64+1541 was uncomfortably close to that of an Amiga or Atari ST.
@@Silanda Yes, the first time I noticed a floppy drive being "cheap" was around '85/86 when Dixons were selling the Atari 800XL & 1050 floppy drive cheap in an attempt to sell off the XL stock with the arrival of the new redesigned XE machines. At the time I wasn't so into the C64 so I didn't notice the prices but I do recall complaints in the computer magazines about how expensive they were compared to the other computers.
Partly unfavourable exchange rates. Partly a tradition among computer sellers and manufacturers to not apply any exchange rate at all! So if something cost $499, it would be priced in the UK at £499, at a time when £1 was worth about $2 ! This continued into the 1990s with all sorts of gear including PCs and their parts. I think it's the Internet that finally got them to cut it out, giving people a choice of importing themselves, or at least seeing American prices and realising how much they were being ripped off! Now we can order stuff for peanuts directly from China, and the only issue is things being dangerous and shoddily made.
Brilliant video. Love the detail in the range of computers used (I have an Enterprise, a original Z80, various Acorns, Commodores and Spectrum machines and Amstrad too, so I can use them for that tape experience); the oscilloscope work, and how you worked with the maker to fix the Oric issue.
@@NoelsRetroLab Thanks: I'm just emailing the seller citing your review and asking if he ships to the UK (with C64 and other cables). I hope he supports the Enterprise soon. p.s. (Oh and have PC Engines, Atari Lynx mk1, PHILIPS G7000 Videopac and other Sega and Nintendo stuff, but had mods for those. Got matching monitors too, except for the Sinclair line)
The Commodore C64 and Vic20 were really lightly evolved versions of the Commodore PET, which were aimed at business and schools. The Pets definitely didn't have cartridges. Early units shipped with cassette built in. I think there was an idea that it doubled as an IO device as well as tape playback for typists doing transcriptions. In school, we had a computer lab that had several pets. They all shared one floppy drive, but some units had external tape drives that were not shared.
FYI...we had the official tape deck for C64...disk drives where too expensive..alot of the shops also sold cassettes for the C64 nice vid...thanks Noel
Same where I lived back then. *Every* C64 user I knew had the "datasette" until the disk drives came down in price. Drives were extremely expensive back then, pretty much as expensive or even more than a C64. I don't know if it really was more expensive to make but wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. But when the user got a disk drive there was no looking back - even though the C64/1541 combo suffered from that infamous firmware bug that made the drive slower than it needed to be. When floppy speeders entered the scene, tapes were laughed at. Yes, there were tape speeders, too, but who wanted a tape when you have a floppy with a directory, sequential access, still faster loading and usually much more reliable (if we forget the overheating problem for a moment...).
Same here, we had around 100 tapes !!!!. The 1531, when properly alligned and mantained, barely failled. Tapes were better than people think. A bit slow ... but hey ... the 80s magic.
Where are you based, though? Although Noel doesn't actually mention that, I for some reason automatically assumed he was talking about users in the US (maybe because Commodore was American?). I do know over here in Europe cassettes were probably the most common media for C64 games.
@@BilisNegra australia here... by the time i had C64s at home, disc drives where all the thing, but we where stuck with tape (even tho step brother actually worked for commodore australia!)...my cousin had a C64 with disc drive from early on and thats where i learnt to add *",8,1 ...tapes where just the cheaper medium i guess and i was used to them from CPC days
I'm glad you reviewed this. I was able to order mine recently (along with all the cables). I look forward to receiving it. I noticed as you removed each computer from your shelves that you seemed to have reasonably similar boxes. I wondered where you got them. I have several computers without boxes that I would like to protect better (they are only wrapped in anti-static bags).
Excellent. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I got my boxes from a small box company with lots of different sizes, so I got the ones to match the computers exactly. I really like this set up. www.embalen.com/shop/ver/cajas-de-carton-automontables/cajas-de-carton-de-tapa-y-fondo
This SVI-CAS seems like an excellent product. Considering the tremendous amount of work involved in such a project, $85 AU is an excellent value. I was expecting $200 or more. Another excellent video Noel.
Thanks for this in-depth review! I've been looking for something like this that can also just play generic wav files as I have quite a few obscure computers.
Here in the UK nearly all computer users used tape, even the C64 which wasn't as popular as in the US most people still used tape. Mainly because the drives were so damn expensive over here and besides tapes were so cheap and easy to copy 🏴☠️.
Same in Spain, first computer I saw with a DD was the Amiga 500. My first floppy disk experience was with my 286 computer, and I loved it, when your parents are limiting the time you have to play with the computer, the tape really sucks, and many times you cant even load the game :( AZIMUT NIGHTMARES
In Canada, every computer of the era was automatically equipped with a disk drive. Mostly Made in Taiwan knockoffs, cheap, common, and surprisingly good. You just couldn't buy or sell software on tapes, there was no market for them.
Even tho I will never ever need a device like this, it is hard not to applaud the creators of this perfect blend of retro and modern tech that serves a need that is so niche.
Fantastic video as always! Kepe up the good work :) Really impressed by your storage box solution for keeping your old micros - care to share where you got them from?
C64 tape decks were huge in England and Australia. The commando loader (with music playing) is from the original release. However, not corrupted like that :\
Yes, try this device with a ZX81/TS1000. A full -featured video on this computer would be nice as well. This computer was responsible for many of us learning Z80 assembly due to it's limited abilities. Then things like hi-res graphics and an extended BASIC instruction set, etc. became possible. It forced those of us on an extremely limited budget to either give up or press on to vastly exceed the limits of what Sinclair ever thought the machine was capable of. I chose the latter.
The ability to record alone makes this worthwhile. It's not a feature nessecary for EVERY game, but if you have any interest in text adventures, many would require you to save between parts and carry objects between one part and another, something that can't really be done with a TZXduino.
Looks great, I want one! A couple of UX things I think would improve it a little as well: 1. Left and right arrow keys either side of the computer selection box, so you can go backwards as well as forwards through the list 2. With the On-Screen Keyboard, make the keys larger by only showing upper OR lower case at the same time, rather than both, and switch between them with a Shift Key option 3. Show a message giving the tape load command to enter at the computer prior to commencing loading, so you don't need to refer to the manual
in italy cassettes were extremely popular, families usually had their c64 hooked up only when they were used, in the livingroom or whatever, the datassette was just easier to move around and several parents were also scared by the burning powerbrick aswell :D the media was also easier to get and copy around ofcourse, which helped :D. magazines were full of cassettes with bootleg games at the time
Let's not forget that a disk drive was almost as expensive as the c64. However I remember a few magazines in Italy came out with games on floppies around 1988-1990.
OK... Another retro related gadget that I need to spend money on... :) I will use this on Spectrums and C64, so I would appreciate a follow video up on the recording capability on these machines too. The fact that the code is written from scratch and not being a modified TZXDuino/MaxDuino code is just impressive! The ability to record is just amazing, I think it is the most significant thing about it. A small correction: Atmega2560 is not a faster or more capable MCU compared to Atmega328 we all know. It has the same speed and same processing capability. Just has more RAM, more flash memory and more IO pins etc. It is the MCU used in Arduino Mega.
I have tested the recording in several (not all) of the machines and it works just fine. I didn't think it was necessary to show it in all of them. You can count on it working as well as it did on the Amstrad on those platforms.
Noel, thanks for the awesome video! I would love to see a video (if even it is a short one) on your storage box solution! I love the color printed labels, and the sturdiness of the boxes.. I would love to see more of how you store your machines as it's very relevant to retro computer collectors everywhere! :) I did see the link you posted on another comment - looks like a Spanish site. I would love to see how the machines and accessories fit inside, and if you use foam inserts at all. If you could also cover what sizes of boxes you have used, it would be helpful to eliminate some of that guesswork for those of us who would like to order some of these boxes. I see they are separate top and bottom pieces - I wonder if they can make a single unit box with a flip top lid, or if you think separate top pieces work better? Thanks again for all your awesome content, Noel!
Excellent video and product especially if you have a significant collection of euro 8 bits. Not surprised there was problems with the oric/atmos. I could not get my cousins oric to load anything back in the 80s and I think the manufacturers had to make a significant change to the cassette part of the rom for subsequent versions of oric/atmos.
There are also multiple revisions of the motherboards with different values of capacitors and resistors on the tape circuitry, resulting in some machines requiring vastly different input volumes to proper load games.
Awesome unit. I don’t really need another way of getting data into my Commodore 64. But I want one anyway! And the fact it will work with other systems is awesome and a reason to buy more systems!
It looks as if the version of Chuckie Egg running on the Electron was the BBC Micro version which explains the speed issue (the birds on the Electron version are Magenta due to the different screen mode with fewer colours).
Ah, that explains a lot! I was told it was a great game on the Electron, so I was shocked to see that. I guess those are the dangers of "almost compatibility". That must have been "fun" back in the day!
The weird, moving, glitchy-looking graphics flickering on loading screens were deliberate. They used memory addresses reserved for screen output bytes as program stack dumps and as buffers for file loads. An obstruction vs hackers - anything typed on screen (especially carriage returns) would overwrite critical data or crash active runcode.
The fact it can be used to saved directly to the SD card is quite interesting, that would make things like ripping a tape game into a usable emulator file much easier than the usual methods: Load the real tape from a real tape deck, save the data to the SVI-CAS, guess that would work? Specifically for the Oric, it could be interesting to have a way to select the volume level, because some machines expect a low volume and some other expect a high volume, being able to set that would probably help for some machines.
I recorded all my BBC Micro 8bit tapes onto my PC as .wav files, then used a £10 mobile phone to load them back onto the BBC Micro. Just use Audacity (free) to save the output, and if you have any tapes that don't load you can amplify sections of the sound to make dead copies of data work again! Saving the data from tape to PC and then to disk format is more difficult as you'd need additional software to do that.
@@TheVicar Trust me, I've done a number of conversion, the Oric software is a pain to get right, not two publishers used the same input volume and azimuth/alignment, and not all Oric load the same tape with the same volume setting. We do have tools that can convert a WAV file to an emulator format, decoding the edges, etc... but it's very common to end up with a non working file. Since most games have only very primitive protections, it's much easier to disable the auto-run, load the tape on the physical machine, and then save it back to something else (which could be indeed a PC input) because at least now you have a proper/clean signal. But if the SVI-CAS can do all that conversion on the fly that would be much easier, faster and reliable :)
Double insulated switch-mode power supplies can cause issues like the video interference you are seeing. The problem is that the 0V side of the DC output is not referenced to mains ground and can float up to 90VAC above ground (depending on the internal isolation). You often get "tingles" off of the DC barrel plug if you touch it with damp fingers.
Interesting to hear about the comments regarding the Acorn Electron version of Chuckie Egg. For me, it's an iconic game on that platform and I have fond memories of playing it for many hours but I also guess it's whatever you were used to.
You know what, this thing is actually useful for me, my Spectrum 128k +2 actually has a somewhat caputz tape drive and this can help it come back to life, though I may be more interested in a SD to 3" Floppy adapter/converter.
I would want something like this to work with any computer designed to work with a standard tape recorder. I mean it's nice that it's able to scan the images for file headers, etc., but it would be nice to be able to use it in a generic mode with some random obscure computer, as long as it doesn't require a special tape interface. Well, I should have listened to the end, because you confirmed that it does!
Did you test Spectrum multiload games, something like Gauntlet where you have to load chunks of levels in, plus wind the tape forward and back sometimes?
I think the Commando loading rutine is the original one from Elite. I had the game on my younger days and I remember exactly the same loading screen and music...
I love your videos. Brings back some memories. I know the Apple IIc was not huge in Europe, but it was my first computer and very popular here in Canada. Could you please cover that. I upgraded mine with an Allied Engineering kit to 640k and a 65c816 processor. It was so capable. Thanks.
In the UK and probably europe in general the tape was more common for case, in the us disks. Here in NZ I think fair to say disks as well, certainly that was the case in the late 80s/early 90s
Tested no Turbo-Tape on the C64? FYI the native cassette routines were practically only used to load Turbo-Tape. A 60 minutes tape can hold a bunch of games, as kids we had many many of them.. And what about other commercial fastloaders? Does the SVI-CAS know about them, can you make an image from an original game?
There's also the Arduitape Cassette Player, which can support most retro computers and comes in at about 1/2 of the price of the SVI-CAS. It doesn't support saving though. It has the same limitations as the tzxduino, and can only support files up to 32k hz sample rate. You have to convert all of your tape files to wave format, which is going to take up more room on an SD card. It can be hard to find a program to convert tape formats to wave, for some systems.
FYI Commando on the 64 did have a loader like that (but no glitching!), it was one of my favourite games, so much so I purchased the arcade version! Also, in the UK most people had tapes as disk drives were VERY expensive!
During the Output Wave and Speed Testing segment you kept quoting smaller values of "cycles" for faster signals... did you mean "milliseconds" or am I missing something? (Wouldn't be the first time.) This device is quite the piece of kit, and shows how retro enthusiasts are merging modern small-scale hardware to make older 8-bit and 16 bit retro gear shine into the twenty-first century. Thank you for showing it off!
You're right. I switched to cycles (or Z80 t-cycles, which are 250ns) See more background here: 8bitnotes.com/2017/05/z80-timing/ . You can see the motivation for that on the other video I made about trying to load audio data as quickly as possible, since it's locked to the Z80 speed.
Apple used a very different encoding system than everyone else (typical Woz), but it ought to be possible if there's space to add the extra firmware required. There's much less out there on tape for the Apple ][, mainly because cheap floppy drives was one of its key selling points, but there might be tape images of some of the really early stuff. Having used a real cassette recorder on an Apple ][ I can say the process was painful to get working reliably, much more so than later machines like the ZX Spectrum, so unless you have a really really good reason for wanting to use the casette interface, disks or a disk emulator will be far easier to deal with. Still, if only for the sake of completeness, it would be nice to see working. Apple 1 compatibility, for those of us with reproductions, would actually be useful because as far as I'm aware that never got a disk interface.
I looked into this about 6 months ago, but the shipping from Australia to the U.K. was insane. I would have liked a more in depth review of the recording feature as that is what I'm after, there are too many players and, as far as I know, this is the only recorder.
@@NoelsRetroLab I need something like this for my ZX81. Can you choose the save format ? (Wav/tzx/p). Can you port the saved files into emulators ? But again, the main problem is the shipping costs. :)
Great video! But you should do fixing videos as you’ve always did. Showing the investigation, issue, fixing, etc. don’t forget the content that made you great on RUclips! Keep the great work!
For the powersupply just make a 2 cell lithium pack. No boosting no AC ripple. Also you could probably unplug the power after the loading is complete. I had to do that for a contemporary super nintendo game copier... using a sega master system adapter... it was so noisy.
We'd have absolutely loved this game back in the day. These days loading cartridge files (C64) or disk images is better, and TZX files, in the case of the ZX Spectrum. However, this device is a nice option if you have real hardwares.
I'm then best Retro audio device. I type Run" and plug in a Mic and start squealing at my Amstrad in the most extraordinary way. Occasionally I get 'something' but often I just crash due to an over exercised larynx.
tape drive yes...they where not standard audio cassettes tho, more like a digital tape and drive for it to fit....i have one sitting in my collection..usually they used for just backups, never for actually working with on the daily...
Will it work on Commodore’s 264 series? C16 and the Plus 4? I mean I’m happy with the pi1541 which works great I’m just curious. Love your channel dude, greetings from New Zealand.
Commando? Try the CGA version on an XT with internal speaker sound and you get an idea on how good this game's music and video really was on the C64 ;-)
Interesting little box. When you loaded onto the ZX Spectrum it seemed very fast to me. But then again the cassette interface is very slow using two fixed frequencies. So did you just speed up the video or was the game very small?
I see the TI99 on the shelf, will it work with that? The 99/4a is literally the only machine i need a tape interface for, lol.... I have a TI cassette player, the issue is getting downloaded wavs onto a cassette, or into the TI
This gives away my age, but my TRS-80 Model III had 16Kb of Ram. Some programs ran out of memory. Tape drive was the hard drive. Took ages for some things. I'm sure this device would work on a TRS-80.
I wonder how useful it is to have jacks on the device, when a 9 pin canon connector could have grouped audio in, audio out and remote in a single plug.
Hello Noel. Thank you for all of your videos. I enjoy and learn in almost everyone. I have a question for you. At the 2.30min background music start, and end at the 3min. Who is the maker of the musical theme? Seems like MmcM & Kuvo, a scene demo music. But if is from him, i do not know the name of the musical theme. Can you tell me? Again. Thank you for the videos (i have a MSX CPC 200, CZ Spectrum 48+ (from Argentina), Tk85, Commodore Amiga 500 and a 1200. So i have a great spectrum of possibilities to view in your channel.
@@NoelsRetroLab Thank you for replaying so soon. The music look like the ZX Spectrum Dark Transit. Almost the same tune. Maybe its me... I do not know, but i have solved a long time question... Who was the theme name!!!. Anyway, thanks for your replay.
I brought a M4 Board for about $80 a few years ago for the Amstrad If someone could test it on another machine it would be good, but its only got a setup for one type of computer. Would be good to know if that device also does disks as well ?.
Taped programs are just audio signals. As long as we continue to preserve what we want to be loaded in the future, it's best to have as first priority to support those who host audio files we care about. Gadgets and mediums will come and go.
@@NoelsRetroLab fantastic! Now my ZX80 type-ins can be saved :) Sorry for asking the question before watching the entire video! :-) 🙂 And please share details on the ZX80 - looks amazing.
I found that a £10 Alcatel phone from my local supermarket is perfect for loading games onto my BBC Micro B. All you need is a phone, without any fancy graphic equaliser, which plays .wav files and you're ready to go.
The was a GE portable recorder FOR COMPUTERS that came with 4 different adapters to match the most prominent micros of the era. I believe it was the "compu mate" .... something like that. It was pretty small, probably a crappy transport comming from GE
One thing that I was wondering is if for some reason the C64 cable to someone but if they had a working dataset and a cassette to CD/MP3 adapter on hand, would that work to load tape files?
This does seem cool and I appreciate the review. I think the metaphor you chose is somewhat more apt than you may have initally realized, too. Corolla: inexpensive and not the prettiest car at the show but highly customizable by the user and tons of aftermarket parts Model X: sleek and speedy but pricey and hard to find and not as customizable by the user Personally, I'll go for a Corolla--or, rather, I'll pick an open source project I can build from a kit because that's a huge part of the fun of this hobby for me but I can see the appeal of something like this for people who are willing to spend more at the outset to get something turnkey.
This is quite easily the most underrated retro tech channel on RUclips. Always great, interesting content.
Glad you think so! 😃 Thank you!
@@NoelsRetroLab I was about to say I'd love to see more regarding how fast you can load audio - then I got to the bit of the video where you said you'll be making a video about it.
The video about how fast you can load from a cassette is the video that made me subscribe.
Once again, you helped a retro designer to improve his product. Good job! Great video!
The Shift/RunStop key function on the C64 is inherited from the even older 1977 Commodore PET, which as you probably know was designed with tape in mind. The function is built into the screen editor which as far as I can see was copied wholesale into the VIC 20 and C64. Also, for some reason a lot of people in the UK (one of Commodores biggest markets outside the USA) also used tapes for the C64 (in the early 80s few people could afford disk drives, (possibly because of unfavorable exchange rates?) so most games were sold as cassette. It really wasn't until the late 80s that disk drives became cheap enough for the "average" game player to afford.
Yeah, price was a problem in the UK. IIRC the 1541 cost about as much as the 64 itself, so hurt its selling point of being relatively inexpensive and competitive with the other 8-bit micros. I suspect the culture surrounding the UK home computer boom was a bit different to the US computer scene too, which might have had an impact on the cost that each market was prepared to accept.
I think cost was a problem even later in the C64's life, because the cost of a C64+1541 was uncomfortably close to that of an Amiga or Atari ST.
@@Silanda Yes, the first time I noticed a floppy drive being "cheap" was around '85/86 when Dixons were selling the Atari 800XL & 1050 floppy drive cheap in an attempt to sell off the XL stock with the arrival of the new redesigned XE machines. At the time I wasn't so into the C64 so I didn't notice the prices but I do recall complaints in the computer magazines about how expensive they were compared to the other computers.
Partly unfavourable exchange rates. Partly a tradition among computer sellers and manufacturers to not apply any exchange rate at all! So if something cost $499, it would be priced in the UK at £499, at a time when £1 was worth about $2 ! This continued into the 1990s with all sorts of gear including PCs and their parts. I think it's the Internet that finally got them to cut it out, giving people a choice of importing themselves, or at least seeing American prices and realising how much they were being ripped off!
Now we can order stuff for peanuts directly from China, and the only issue is things being dangerous and shoddily made.
Brilliant video. Love the detail in the range of computers used (I have an Enterprise, a original Z80, various Acorns, Commodores and Spectrum machines and Amstrad too, so I can use them for that tape experience); the oscilloscope work, and how you worked with the maker to fix the Oric issue.
Thanks! Glad you liked it and glad to see another person with broad retro tastes like me 😃
@@NoelsRetroLab Thanks: I'm just emailing the seller citing your review and asking if he ships to the UK (with C64 and other cables). I hope he supports the Enterprise soon.
p.s.
(Oh and have PC Engines, Atari Lynx mk1, PHILIPS G7000 Videopac and other Sega and Nintendo stuff, but had mods for those. Got matching monitors too, except for the Sinclair line)
The Commodore C64 and Vic20 were really lightly evolved versions of the Commodore PET, which were aimed at business and schools. The Pets definitely didn't have cartridges. Early units shipped with cassette built in. I think there was an idea that it doubled as an IO device as well as tape playback for typists doing transcriptions. In school, we had a computer lab that had several pets. They all shared one floppy drive, but some units had external tape drives that were not shared.
A great review of a fabulous device - definitely on my wish list!
FYI...we had the official tape deck for C64...disk drives where too expensive..alot of the shops also sold cassettes for the C64
nice vid...thanks Noel
Same where I lived back then. *Every* C64 user I knew had the "datasette" until the disk drives came down in price. Drives were extremely expensive back then, pretty much as expensive or even more than a C64. I don't know if it really was more expensive to make but wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
But when the user got a disk drive there was no looking back - even though the C64/1541 combo suffered from that infamous firmware bug that made the drive slower than it needed to be. When floppy speeders entered the scene, tapes were laughed at.
Yes, there were tape speeders, too, but who wanted a tape when you have a floppy with a directory, sequential access, still faster loading and usually much more reliable (if we forget the overheating problem for a moment...).
Same here, we had around 100 tapes !!!!. The 1531, when properly alligned and mantained, barely failled. Tapes were better than people think. A bit slow ... but hey ... the 80s magic.
yeah, nearly everyone I knew in UK with c64 used tapes
Where are you based, though? Although Noel doesn't actually mention that, I for some reason automatically assumed he was talking about users in the US (maybe because Commodore was American?). I do know over here in Europe cassettes were probably the most common media for C64 games.
@@BilisNegra australia here... by the time i had C64s at home, disc drives where all the thing, but we where stuck with tape (even tho step brother actually worked for commodore australia!)...my cousin had a C64 with disc drive from early on and thats where i learnt to add *",8,1 ...tapes where just the cheaper medium i guess and i was used to them from CPC days
Wow, that's a really nice device!!!Thanks for sharing with us Noel!! Greetings, Michael
My pleasure!
I'm glad you reviewed this. I was able to order mine recently (along with all the cables). I look forward to receiving it. I noticed as you removed each computer from your shelves that you seemed to have reasonably similar boxes. I wondered where you got them. I have several computers without boxes that I would like to protect better (they are only wrapped in anti-static bags).
Excellent. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I got my boxes from a small box company with lots of different sizes, so I got the ones to match the computers exactly. I really like this set up. www.embalen.com/shop/ver/cajas-de-carton-automontables/cajas-de-carton-de-tapa-y-fondo
This SVI-CAS seems like an excellent product. Considering the tremendous amount of work involved in such a project, $85 AU is an excellent value. I was expecting $200 or more. Another excellent video Noel.
Thanks for this in-depth review! I've been looking for something like this that can also just play generic wav files as I have quite a few obscure computers.
Glad it was helpful! It sounds like it's exactly what you're looking for then 👍
@@NoelsRetroLab My Tandy 102, Sega SC-3000 and Epson HX-20 say thank you. 🙂
Good point, should test it with some pocket computers.
Here in the UK nearly all computer users used tape, even the C64 which wasn't as popular as in the US most people still used tape. Mainly because the drives were so damn expensive over here and besides tapes were so cheap and easy to copy 🏴☠️.
Same in Spain, first computer I saw with a DD was the Amiga 500. My first floppy disk experience was with my 286 computer, and I loved it, when your parents are limiting the time you have to play with the computer, the tape really sucks, and many times you cant even load the game :( AZIMUT NIGHTMARES
In Canada, every computer of the era was automatically equipped with a disk drive. Mostly Made in Taiwan knockoffs, cheap, common, and surprisingly good.
You just couldn't buy or sell software on tapes, there was no market for them.
I wish I had one eighth of the electrical engineering skins of this dude...
He he. The old Oric creating trouble, as usual. Excelent video, Noel. As always.
Time for fun has arrived!!!
Excellent Review, I will be ordering for sure.
Definitely worth it! 👍
Even tho I will never ever need a device like this, it is hard not to applaud the creators of this perfect blend of retro and modern tech that serves a need that is so niche.
Awesome review, Noel! Thanks!
Great video as always Noel, I can't believe the price of this device considering everything it does. I'm going to have to add one to the collection. 😁
Love the Sabreman T shirt
Fantastic video as always! Kepe up the good work :) Really impressed by your storage box solution for keeping your old micros - care to share where you got them from?
Nice to see this also works for the Atari line as well.
Would "luv to have a beer with Duncan". And you too Noel. Great video. Cheers.
C64 tape decks were huge in England and Australia.
The commando loader (with music playing) is from the original release. However, not corrupted like that :\
I got my SVI-CAS and love it.
Yes, try this device with a ZX81/TS1000. A full -featured video on this computer would be nice as well. This computer was responsible for many of us learning Z80 assembly due to it's limited abilities. Then things like hi-res graphics and an extended BASIC instruction set, etc. became possible. It forced those of us on an extremely limited budget to either give up or press on to vastly exceed the limits of what Sinclair ever thought the machine was capable of. I chose the latter.
That’s actually a fun product. And I love your storage facility!
The ability to record alone makes this worthwhile. It's not a feature nessecary for EVERY game, but if you have any interest in text adventures, many would require you to save between parts and carry objects between one part and another, something that can't really be done with a TZXduino.
But can it rewind/fast forward/reset counter & rewind tape to here? .. until it can, the c64 datasette will win everytime.
Pretty cool looking
Looks great, I want one! A couple of UX things I think would improve it a little as well:
1. Left and right arrow keys either side of the computer selection box, so you can go backwards as well as forwards through the list
2. With the On-Screen Keyboard, make the keys larger by only showing upper OR lower case at the same time, rather than both, and switch between them with a Shift Key option
3. Show a message giving the tape load command to enter at the computer prior to commencing loading, so you don't need to refer to the manual
in italy cassettes were extremely popular, families usually had their c64 hooked up only when they were used, in the livingroom or whatever, the datassette was just easier to move around and several parents were also scared by the burning powerbrick aswell :D
the media was also easier to get and copy around ofcourse, which helped :D. magazines were full of cassettes with bootleg games at the time
Let's not forget that a disk drive was almost as expensive as the c64. However I remember a few magazines in Italy came out with games on floppies around 1988-1990.
@@bufordmaddogtannen but of course! i also remember jackson libri had quite a few publications with lovely floppies
@@lordmuaddib and horrible translations. 😁
@@bufordmaddogtannen indeed! :D
OK... Another retro related gadget that I need to spend money on... :) I will use this on Spectrums and C64, so I would appreciate a follow video up on the recording capability on these machines too. The fact that the code is written from scratch and not being a modified TZXDuino/MaxDuino code is just impressive!
The ability to record is just amazing, I think it is the most significant thing about it.
A small correction: Atmega2560 is not a faster or more capable MCU compared to Atmega328 we all know. It has the same speed and same processing capability. Just has more RAM, more flash memory and more IO pins etc. It is the MCU used in Arduino Mega.
I have tested the recording in several (not all) of the machines and it works just fine. I didn't think it was necessary to show it in all of them. You can count on it working as well as it did on the Amstrad on those platforms.
cool video noel keep up the good work i always look forward to new video's from you
Noel, thanks for the awesome video! I would love to see a video (if even it is a short one) on your storage box solution! I love the color printed labels, and the sturdiness of the boxes.. I would love to see more of how you store your machines as it's very relevant to retro computer collectors everywhere! :) I did see the link you posted on another comment - looks like a Spanish site. I would love to see how the machines and accessories fit inside, and if you use foam inserts at all. If you could also cover what sizes of boxes you have used, it would be helpful to eliminate some of that guesswork for those of us who would like to order some of these boxes. I see they are separate top and bottom pieces - I wonder if they can make a single unit box with a flip top lid, or if you think separate top pieces work better?
Thanks again for all your awesome content, Noel!
Excellent video and product especially if you have a significant collection of euro 8 bits. Not surprised there was problems with the oric/atmos. I could not get my cousins oric to load anything back in the 80s and I think the manufacturers had to make a significant change to the cassette part of the rom for subsequent versions of oric/atmos.
There are also multiple revisions of the motherboards with different values of capacitors and resistors on the tape circuitry, resulting in some machines requiring vastly different input volumes to proper load games.
Does it work with a PET? Thank you
I second this question, does it work with Commodore PETs/CBMs?
Awesome unit. I don’t really need another way of getting data into my Commodore 64. But I want one anyway! And the fact it will work with other systems is awesome and a reason to buy more systems!
Just found this: Thats really cool!
Very cool design. For some weird reason the link to the ordering site doesn't load... it hangs 🤔🤷♂️
It looks as if the version of Chuckie Egg running on the Electron was the BBC Micro version which explains the speed issue (the birds on the Electron version are Magenta due to the different screen mode with fewer colours).
Ah, that explains a lot! I was told it was a great game on the Electron, so I was shocked to see that. I guess those are the dangers of "almost compatibility". That must have been "fun" back in the day!
That's pretty impressive that it could load something on the Acorn Electron. Mine is a nightmare and very rarely loads anything.
I used tape deck in the day (and still ofcourse) on my C64. They were very common in the Netherlands
The weird, moving, glitchy-looking graphics flickering on loading screens were deliberate.
They used memory addresses reserved for screen output bytes as program stack dumps and as buffers for file loads. An obstruction vs hackers - anything typed on screen (especially carriage returns) would overwrite critical data or crash active runcode.
The loading music for Commando appears to be Livng on Video by Trans X.
The fact it can be used to saved directly to the SD card is quite interesting, that would make things like ripping a tape game into a usable emulator file much easier than the usual methods: Load the real tape from a real tape deck, save the data to the SVI-CAS, guess that would work?
Specifically for the Oric, it could be interesting to have a way to select the volume level, because some machines expect a low volume and some other expect a high volume, being able to set that would probably help for some machines.
I recorded all my BBC Micro 8bit tapes onto my PC as .wav files, then used a £10 mobile phone to load them back onto the BBC Micro. Just use Audacity (free) to save the output, and if you have any tapes that don't load you can amplify sections of the sound to make dead copies of data work again!
Saving the data from tape to PC and then to disk format is more difficult as you'd need additional software to do that.
@@TheVicar Trust me, I've done a number of conversion, the Oric software is a pain to get right, not two publishers used the same input volume and azimuth/alignment, and not all Oric load the same tape with the same volume setting.
We do have tools that can convert a WAV file to an emulator format, decoding the edges, etc... but it's very common to end up with a non working file.
Since most games have only very primitive protections, it's much easier to disable the auto-run, load the tape on the physical machine, and then save it back to something else (which could be indeed a PC input) because at least now you have a proper/clean signal. But if the SVI-CAS can do all that conversion on the fly that would be much easier, faster and reliable :)
Double insulated switch-mode power supplies can cause issues like the video interference you are seeing. The problem is that the 0V side of the DC output is not referenced to mains ground and can float up to 90VAC above ground (depending on the internal isolation). You often get "tingles" off of the DC barrel plug if you touch it with damp fingers.
Loving the Sabreman T-shirt, by the way! =)
@2:13 - not everyone. What about TRS-80 Model I and III. The Model III had I believe was1500 baud. The low mode was 500 baud
Interesting to hear about the comments regarding the Acorn Electron version of Chuckie Egg. For me, it's an iconic game on that platform and I have fond memories of playing it for many hours but I also guess it's whatever you were used to.
4:13 pero se le puede anexar una bateria de 9V recargable y se convierte en portatil
You know what, this thing is actually useful for me, my Spectrum 128k +2 actually has a somewhat caputz tape drive and this can help it come back to life, though I may be more interested in a SD to 3" Floppy adapter/converter.
It is a nice item! I would like to see TI-99/4A FIAD format supported too!
You should reach out to Ducan. He might be motivated to add if you bug him enough 😃
@@NoelsRetroLab oh yes, I have sent a message to him using the email in the manual. I would love to write a review for the TI99iuc website too :)
I would want something like this to work with any computer designed to work with a standard tape recorder. I mean it's nice that it's able to scan the images for file headers, etc., but it would be nice to be able to use it in a generic mode with some random obscure computer, as long as it doesn't require a special tape interface.
Well, I should have listened to the end, because you confirmed that it does!
Did you test Spectrum multiload games, something like Gauntlet where you have to load chunks of levels in, plus wind the tape forward and back sometimes?
I think the Commando loading rutine is the original one from Elite. I had the game on my younger days and I remember exactly the same loading screen and music...
I love your videos. Brings back some memories. I know the Apple IIc was not huge in Europe, but it was my first computer and very popular here in Canada. Could you please cover that. I upgraded mine with an Allied Engineering kit to 640k and a 65c816 processor. It was so capable. Thanks.
In the UK and probably europe in general the tape was more common for case, in the us disks. Here in NZ I think fair to say disks as well, certainly that was the case in the late 80s/early 90s
Tested no Turbo-Tape on the C64? FYI the native cassette routines were practically only used to load Turbo-Tape. A 60 minutes tape can hold a bunch of games, as kids we had many many of them.. And what about other commercial fastloaders? Does the SVI-CAS know about them, can you make an image from an original game?
Are there any tape fast-loaders for Commodore PETs/CBMs?
There's also the Arduitape Cassette Player, which can support most retro computers and comes in at about 1/2 of the price of the SVI-CAS. It doesn't support saving though.
It has the same limitations as the tzxduino, and can only support files up to 32k hz sample rate. You have to convert all of your tape files to wave format, which is going to take up more room on an SD card. It can be hard to find a program to convert tape formats to wave, for some systems.
Question. Would this unit work on a Commodore PET?
Bringing back nightmares. I hated tape loading when I was a kid! (Thankfully my Apple //c had a built-in floppy drive)
I'm glad I could help 🤣 At least with this device tape loading is reliable, unlike real tapes.
DUDE! Remember that MSX emulator cartridge for the SVI-328? What about loading MSX games on the SVI with the SVI-CAS?
FYI Commando on the 64 did have a loader like that (but no glitching!), it was one of my favourite games, so much so I purchased the arcade version! Also, in the UK most people had tapes as disk drives were VERY expensive!
During the Output Wave and Speed Testing segment you kept quoting smaller values of "cycles" for faster signals... did you mean "milliseconds" or am I missing something? (Wouldn't be the first time.)
This device is quite the piece of kit, and shows how retro enthusiasts are merging modern small-scale hardware to make older 8-bit and 16 bit retro gear shine into the twenty-first century. Thank you for showing it off!
You're right. I switched to cycles (or Z80 t-cycles, which are 250ns) See more background here: 8bitnotes.com/2017/05/z80-timing/ . You can see the motivation for that on the other video I made about trying to load audio data as quickly as possible, since it's locked to the Z80 speed.
12:38 Dragon is not (MOS Technology) 65xx, but (Motorola) 6809.
Very true. I misspoke there.
Does it have the ellusive original PC's casette support?
Thanks for sharing!! I wonder if it would work with your Apple II, even though it's not listed. That would be interesting to see
Apple used a very different encoding system than everyone else (typical Woz), but it ought to be possible if there's space to add the extra firmware required. There's much less out there on tape for the Apple ][, mainly because cheap floppy drives was one of its key selling points, but there might be tape images of some of the really early stuff. Having used a real cassette recorder on an Apple ][ I can say the process was painful to get working reliably, much more so than later machines like the ZX Spectrum, so unless you have a really really good reason for wanting to use the casette interface, disks or a disk emulator will be far easier to deal with. Still, if only for the sake of completeness, it would be nice to see working. Apple 1 compatibility, for those of us with reproductions, would actually be useful because as far as I'm aware that never got a disk interface.
I looked into this about 6 months ago, but the shipping from Australia to the U.K. was insane.
I would have liked a more in depth review of the recording feature as that is what I'm after, there are too many players and, as far as I know, this is the only recorder.
What would you like to know about the recording? I did a few tests (not in all of them) and it simply just worked like it did on the Amstrad.
@@NoelsRetroLab I need something like this for my ZX81. Can you choose the save format ? (Wav/tzx/p). Can you port the saved files into emulators ? But again, the main problem is the shipping costs. :)
Great video! But you should do fixing videos as you’ve always did. Showing the investigation, issue, fixing, etc. don’t forget the content that made you great on RUclips! Keep the great work!
the commando loader is the actual shipped one. odd that it's mucking up
For the powersupply just make a 2 cell lithium pack. No boosting no AC ripple.
Also you could probably unplug the power after the loading is complete. I had to do that for a contemporary super nintendo game copier... using a sega master system adapter... it was so noisy.
Slightly off topic: where did you get that Knight Lore T-Shirt?? I love it :)
We'd have absolutely loved this game back in the day. These days loading cartridge files (C64) or disk images is better, and TZX files, in the case of the ZX Spectrum. However, this device is a nice option if you have real hardwares.
I'm then best Retro audio device. I type Run" and plug in a Mic and start squealing at my Amstrad in the most extraordinary way. Occasionally I get 'something' but often I just crash due to an over exercised larynx.
🤣
Didn't the OG IBM AT have support for tape files? I remember LGR talking about it a few years back. Would be awesome to see an AT PC boot from tape.
The IBM PC and PCjr definitely had cassette I/O but later models didn't (XT, AT...).
tape drive yes...they where not standard audio cassettes tho, more like a digital tape and drive for it to fit....i have one sitting in my collection..usually they used for just backups, never for actually working with on the daily...
Will it work on Commodore’s 264 series? C16 and the Plus 4? I mean I’m happy with the pi1541 which works great I’m just curious. Love your channel dude, greetings from New Zealand.
Yes, it does! I just don't happen to have any to test them with. But they're listed in the manual as supported. Thanks! 😃
looks very neat! I'm assuming every 'load' was sped up massively, It would have been handy to show how much.
Commando? Try the CGA version on an XT with internal speaker sound and you get an idea on how good this game's music and video really was on the C64 ;-)
Interesting little box. When you loaded onto the ZX Spectrum it seemed very fast to me. But then again the cassette interface is very slow using two fixed frequencies. So did you just speed up the video or was the game very small?
I see the TI99 on the shelf, will it work with that? The 99/4a is literally the only machine i need a tape interface for, lol....
I have a TI cassette player, the issue is getting downloaded wavs onto a cassette, or into the TI
Yes, it has been upgraded to work with the TI99!
BTW, you can use the Shift&RunStop with floppy too : try 'load"*",8Shift&RunStop'
This gives away my age, but my TRS-80 Model III had 16Kb of Ram. Some programs ran out of memory. Tape drive was the hard drive. Took ages for some things. I'm sure this device would work on a TRS-80.
On the C64 thing. Disks were common in the USA, but everywhere else used tapes.
I wonder how useful it is to have jacks on the device, when a 9 pin canon connector could have grouped audio in, audio out and remote in a single plug.
Shame i can't find anywhere to purchase it
A good name for it; The UniCAS, short and simple... :)
Hello Noel. Thank you for all of your videos. I enjoy and learn in almost everyone. I have a question for you.
At the 2.30min background music start, and end at the 3min.
Who is the maker of the musical theme? Seems like MmcM & Kuvo, a scene demo music. But if is from him, i do not know the name of the musical theme.
Can you tell me?
Again. Thank you for the videos (i have a MSX CPC 200, CZ Spectrum 48+ (from Argentina), Tk85, Commodore Amiga 500 and a 1200. So i have a great spectrum of possibilities to view in your channel.
It's in the music credits in the description: Funky Stars, which is an 8-bit version of an Amiga (I think) demo track. Great music! 😃
@@NoelsRetroLab Thank you for replaying so soon. The music look like the ZX Spectrum Dark Transit. Almost the same tune. Maybe its me... I do not know, but i have solved a long time question... Who was the theme name!!!.
Anyway, thanks for your replay.
I brought a M4 Board for about $80 a few years ago for the Amstrad If someone could test it on another machine it would be good, but its only got a setup for one type of computer.
Would be good to know if that device also does disks as well ?.
Did you miss out the MEMOTECH MTX512 which is a ZILOG Z80A
Taped programs are just audio signals. As long as we continue to preserve what we want to be loaded in the future, it's best to have as first priority to support those who host audio files we care about. Gadgets and mediums will come and go.
As long as people save them as .wav format then we can save the past from deletion. MP3 compression happily destroys data.
Looks very cool. I see it has sockets for a Mic connection - does that mean it records too?
Yes, in all devices. Check out the Amstrad section to see it in action recording.
@@NoelsRetroLab fantastic! Now my ZX80 type-ins can be saved :) Sorry for asking the question before watching the entire video! :-) 🙂 And please share details on the ZX80 - looks amazing.
I found that a £10 Alcatel phone from my local supermarket is perfect for loading games onto my BBC Micro B. All you need is a phone, without any fancy graphic equaliser, which plays .wav files and you're ready to go.
The was a GE portable recorder FOR COMPUTERS that came with 4 different adapters to match the most prominent micros of the era. I believe it was the "compu mate" .... something like that. It was pretty small, probably a crappy transport comming from GE
One thing that I was wondering is if for some reason the C64 cable to someone but if they had a working dataset and a cassette to CD/MP3 adapter on hand, would that work to load tape files?
This does seem cool and I appreciate the review. I think the metaphor you chose is somewhat more apt than you may have initally realized, too.
Corolla: inexpensive and not the prettiest car at the show but highly customizable by the user and tons of aftermarket parts
Model X: sleek and speedy but pricey and hard to find and not as customizable by the user
Personally, I'll go for a Corolla--or, rather, I'll pick an open source project I can build from a kit because that's a huge part of the fun of this hobby for me but I can see the appeal of something like this for people who are willing to spend more at the outset to get something turnkey.
Ooh yeah I'd like to see a Z81 repair vid.
Here in the UK we all used tape for the C64 , nobody had a disk drive
UniCAS would be a great name imo
The C64 was inundated with tape games. I do not know anyone who had a disc drive for it.