Thicket data repository for the EEG
anil.recoil.org
1{
2 "id": "https://www.tunbury.org/2018/09/24/retro-gaming-space-raiders",
3 "title": "Retro Gaming: Space Raiders",
4 "link": "https://www.tunbury.org/2018/09/24/retro-gaming-space-raiders/",
5 "updated": "2018-09-24T12:41:29",
6 "published": "2018-09-24T12:41:29",
7 "summary": "Dylan’s favourite t-shirt is his Game Over shirt which always reminds me to Space Raiders from the ZX Spectrum days. I found the cassette tape quite easily but it took a significant amount of searching to find the Spectrum itself and included in the box was the tape recorder as well!",
8 "content": "<p>Dylan’s favourite t-shirt is his Game Over shirt which always reminds me to Space Raiders from the ZX Spectrum days. I found the cassette tape quite easily but it took a significant amount of searching to find the Spectrum itself and included in the box was the tape recorder as well!</p>\n\n<p>Unfortunately when I set about loading the game it didn’t work. It probably was a lot to ask after 30+ years. The audio sounded a bit low and the tape player was at maximum. I tried connecting it via an amplifier but that didn’t help.</p>\n\n<p>I connected the tape drive to my Mac and looked at the file in Audacity.</p>\n\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.tunbury.org/images/original-tape-player.png\"></p>\n\n<p>Apart from being very quiet, zooming in showed that after the guard tone it was impossible to see the signal as described in this <a href=\"http://www.myprius.co.za/tape_storage.htm\">excellent post</a>.</p>\n\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.tunbury.org/images/nothing-to-see.png\"></p>\n\n<p>I tried the Fuse utilities to covert the WAV into a TZX file but these failed. I found more tools here which I installed on my Raspberry PI but the result was the same.</p>\n\n<p>Eventually, I decided to see if I could find another tape player and I found an old compact media centre. I played the tape straight into Audacity just to see if I could see a difference. Clearly this find is significantly better:</p>\n\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.tunbury.org/images/compact-media-centre.png\"></p>\n\n<p>I tried <code>audio2tape</code> but that give me a bunch of CRC errors, but processing the file with <code>tzxwav</code> worked perfectly:</p>\n\n<div><div><pre><code>pi@raspberrypi:~/.local/bin $ ./tzxwav -p -v -o ~/raiders.tzx -D ~/raiders.wav \n=== Program: raiders ---------------------------------| 1:56\nExpected length: 40\nLeader: @1055530, Sync: @1275725, End: @1279885\nProgram: raiders (40 bytes)\n--- data########----------------------------------------| 1:51\nLength: 40\nLeader: @1323967, Sync: @1412003, End: @1421770\n40 bytes of data\n=== Program: RAIDERS ---------------------------------| 1:44\nExpected length: 68\nLeader: @1510973, Sync: @1731454, End: @1735476\nProgram: RAIDERS (68 bytes)\n--- data###########-------------------------------------| 1:40\nLength: 68\nLeader: @1778815, Sync: @1866811, End: @1882863\n68 bytes of data\n=== Bytes: T #----------------------------------| 1:33\nStart: 16384, Expected length: 6912\nLeader: @1964171, Sync: @2184510, End: @2188446\nScreen: T \n--- data#########################-----------------------| 1:27\nLength: 6912\nLeader: @2231875, Sync: @2319891, End: @3680454\n6912 bytes of data\n=== Bytes: C ##############---------------------| 1:16\nStart: 24576, Expected length: 7860\nLeader: @3778730, Sync: @3989417, End: @3993362\nBytes: C (start: 24576, 7860 bytes)\n--- data###########################################-----| 0:19\nLength: 7860\nLeader: @4036807, Sync: @4124864, End: @6093760\n7860 bytes of data\n100% |##################################################| 0:00\n</code></pre></div></div>\n\n<p>I loaded the TZX file into Fuse and it worked as expected.</p>\n\n<p>Armed with a working tape player I loaded the game on the real ZX Spectrum on the first attempt</p>\n\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://www.tunbury.org/images/space-raiders-on-tv.jpg\"></p>\n\n<p>Lastly, can we have this on our Raspberry PI? Well of course, just install Fuse and load up the TZX images:</p>\n\n<div><div><pre><code>sudo apt-get install fuse-emulator-common\nsudo apt-get install spectrum-roms fuse-emulator-utils\n</code></pre></div></div>",
9 "content_type": "html",
10 "author": {
11 "name": "Mark Elvers",
12 "email": "mark.elvers@tunbury.org",
13 "uri": null
14 },
15 "categories": [
16 "specturm",
17 "raspberrypi"
18 ],
19 "source": "https://www.tunbury.org/atom.xml"
20}