Loading retrogames on tape on C64
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- It took 5 mins to load a game with the "turbo". No wonder we played them for so long...
For Swedish readers, see more at spelpappan.se/2...
Update 120824: Someone asked me how it sounds when you play a data tape in a regular cassette recorder - and this is the answer:
• Playing data tapes on ...
For all of you interested in the old days of the Commodore 64, I recommend the book, "Generation 64" - available at Bitmap Books: www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/generation64?variant=6969447619
Hey friend can you tell me, were there any C64 copies? Like using the same patent, playing audio tapes, but slightly different looking?
Do you mean the computer itself or the datasette? Yes, there were different datasettes - even different Commodore models: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette
if you rеally want hеr bасk (and I knооoоw уyуou dо) you neеdtoо stop eeeevеrything and go watсh this vidео right nоw =>>> twitter.com/28b6ff78e5015b4ae/status/790853501416935424 Lоаding rеtrоgааames on tapе on C64
Never managed to play it...😞
And now you are complaining about today's game loading times. lol
Yes, kids of today are VERY spoiled. If they just knew. C64 was my first computer. So many good memories :-)
Yay im spoiled
i play rdr 2, the loading is 2-3 minutes yet i never hated the loading thing
Sorry but finally your comment is outdated, there is no more loading ...2020. :) I Can travel back to my time now
Still better than GTA 5
My mind can't process that this computer had 64kb RAM, is magic
I had one Commodore 64 back in the 1987,it is true dude,legendary times,entire school class came to my house to play something like this,hehe
ua-cam.com/video/hrjjurdtoXo/v-deo.html
64k is much enought for this: files.scene.org/view/demos/groups/farb-rausch/fr08_final.zip
@@ssdivizion Haha, name figures out.
@Lucas Ferreira completely understandable, your mind is not a 6510.
I grew up with the C64 and Datasette. Thanks for your video, very nostalgic! Best gaming times in the 80s and 90s!
Was just reminiscing about this frustrating peace of technology. The hours wasted waiting on Batman loading. Back then patience was a virtue.
I had a floppy drive, thankfully.
James Jeffery it was an art to do the calibration for each game :-))))) using a small and thin screw driver. Lol.
This was before floppy
I had both. Had to work every Sunday for three years to pay it off.
Oh, as soon as I got that, it was a life saver.
This is really interesting. You could fit so many games onto one cassette with this type of thing.
Them were the days. I remember the game Delta (1987) had a multi-load thingy where you could mess around with sounds while the game was still loading.
WHAT THE HELL, that Commando has better music than the NES version : q
Yup, it sure does :)
Plays far better too.
NES always had horrible music, mostly composed by strange Japanese dudes with ADHD. C64 had awesome music and the sound chip was much better.
It's because MOS 6581 :)
I love this, C64 is an amazing machine with it's SID chip and "groundbreaking" graphics (by the use of "sprites" over a scene). I think I must go and dust my own off and play some Bubble Bobble and maybe code some BASIC;-) Good vid!
"Cryptic" doesn't even begin do describe this.
+ThePreciseClimber Yeah. I know the tape drives existed in America, but it's pretty easy to see why it didn't hit big here. Geez, and I thought floppies were a pain.
I four one of these cassette drives almost brand new in a box at a thrift store, I knew about them but I've always been using ibm and other pcs with floppy drives and I'm thankful for them I wouldn't have the patience for these
Muito interessante ver o início de tudo o que temos hoje. Obrigado por compartilhar o vídeo. :)
Impossible Mission to 30 minutes to load. You could have lunch and go for a bike ride and come back.
Thanks for the memories :D
Piracy must have been a breeze with these
Absolutely fascinating
Yes, if you read the description of this clip you will find another clip where I play a data tape in a regular tape player too. It's really the sound of bits that the C64 can transfer to 1s and 0s. The difference is that my tape consists of cracked games, and his seems to be an original game tape.
Putting data on cassettes was really bad, but also really cheap - that's why they used it then. And don't today :)
If you think about it. It still takes 5 minute to play a game.
Install, DLC , Patch.
They are actually not that expensive on sites like eBay and such; and there are pleny of them still working - great quality! :)
I miss the screeching noise
lol ke too
+Stayros Paparunas me*
Thanks for the flashback lol. Great system.
Check if the tape head is aligned correctly, or if any games are actually on the tape ;)
Ja das waren noch Zeiten , da musste man schon ein halber Informatiker sein, ohne Studium :-)
you should back up your games to floppy disks (and to disk images after that)!
My uncle had the exact same setup, with the tape and the notebook with games as well.
I have always wondered, how did you get the games?I mean did you just buy a tape in the store with mixed games or?
+neonille You could get games compilations even at the newspapers kiosk, that's how I used to do. In general they came along a specialized magazine. Yeah the titles were often wrong (or deliberately 'renamed' because cracked versions) or they were a total surprise. You could get a compilation for like 5 bucks with 20 average games including often 2-3 very good ones. Also sharing among friends was a must.
+neonille You bought them at computer shops. But really, most kids would get pirated compilations (you get $10 from your parents for the entire week, a single game costs $15 but $5 will get you 10 of them.. hmm, tough choice) at the same shops, a lot of newsagents and probably even by mail order. Few took piracy seriously among law enforcement types and lawyers, but then we didn't have the Internet to distribute everything effortlessly. Simpler times...
Most of us just got pirated games from friends. They "invented" the turbo loader programs just to get more stuff into one cassette, few people got them through postal mail, and distributed them to friends. My cousin was one who would get cracked games from other countries and everyone and their neighbour copied them back here. A golden dawn of software piracy back then, it was pretty rare that anyone really paid for games.
what happened if you were in the middle of the game and the cassette needed to be rewound?
This is a cracked turbo game; first you need to load a software, called a "turbo", into the computer's memory - and afterwards the cracked game itself. That's it, you don't need the cassette anymore after that once the game is loaded into memory.
There were of course other games that needed constant loading due to the fact that the full game did not fit into memory at once. In these games you could not play and load at the same time; first you load the game and play a bit - then when the game asks you to load some more it instructs you which cassette side is needed and you load some more. And wait. Can't play while loading.
lIlI I don't understand - what do you mean?
lIlI He meant you couldn't play at all. Right now most games will load things in the background as needed. Much more than you think.
On C64 you needed to load it all up front. And while you did that, (almost) nothing else could happen. The best games a loading-image and maybe a loading song, but that wasn't standard.
+Shadowriver ........
+Blaze The Hedgehog It didn't work like that. If a game had multiple stages to loaded one per time, the casette was already stopped right before the next to be loaded. You only needed to press Play when required. If the end of the cassette was reached, you had to turn side (hence it was already fully rewound).
I had a zx spectrum and thought the c64 did things differently,clearly i was wrong lol.😂
I love Commodore 64 i have still mi from 1984 and i tanke care on IT 👍👍🙂
Curious, my Apple IIGS exact same screen layout and color on boot.
What happens if you put these tapes in a tape recorder and hit the play button?
Potew: probably a lot of noise.
abc turbo nevetr forget this
I never had one of these. Were there exclusive games or something? What would be the purpose of going this route vs floppy?
Diskdrives were expensive, but datassettes came with the computer. No other upside, really.
I never got one but good to know. thanks
spelpappan I've never heard of datasettes coming with a C64. I know mine didn't when I bought it in 1985.
Cory Engel It was very common in Europe to ship a C64 with a Datasette, much less so in the US where the 1541 was cheaper. I live in Sweden and could not afford one for years.
Why didn't they just design a cassette drive that read the tapes at high speed to decrease load times? I see no reason why they have to run at the same speed as an audio cassette if it's just data...
1 minute eh? i wish some games would load that fast.
Wait an actual cassette tape ? 😯😯 so if the tape run out what then ? ... I'm really interested... how does it work.. ?
A game like this is loaded into RAM once. Then you do not need the cassette anymore. The tape is not continuously running throughout the game. For bigger games, you might have to load several times. The principle is the same: the game pauses until you have loaded the piece that is needed.
I had 2 datassettes for my C64's, but somehow I lost them during moving... I have looked everywhere, but they just disappeared :(
im sorry but im a late nes gamer but what exactly did this do?
It's an early computer. Cracked games were stored on cassette tapes, and in order to load them, you first had to load the Turbo Loader. Once that was done you could load the game itself. All in all it took some five minutes.
maybe i need to get one of these eh?
Looks easier than trying to load a game on a first gen PSX. 🤣
No, it only reads data.
BTW, if you find a way to transfer C64 roms back to tape, there are a few tools that can help you to get the head adjusted just right. Do a search for "Azimuth Head Alignment Kit", or try these:
commodore64.se / wiki / index.php / Justering_av_tonhuvud_p%C3%A5_bandstationer (3 links in .d64, .t64 and .tap)
noname.c64.org / csdb/release / ?id=45413
i just sampled this. lol
How can a game be stored on tape?
1980s tech :D
It's all binary! The first digital cameras also used tape!
European version way though.
I was raised in the 90's, so the oldest ways of game storage I was aware about were the cartdrige and floppy disks. It blew my mind learning that games could also be storaged in cassette tapes, it's insane!
In the early days it was stored on paper.
@jhonps haha
We had this. I remember all these little details. Didn't remember them before I watched this. All coming back. :D Cool shit!
You will hear a high pitch noise on the parts of the tape that contain data. Between every game there is silence, that is how you knew if the tape was empty for use or if you already had recorded something on it. I could put up another video of that, if you like.
Bring back the fucking 80s right now !!!
DiceTheBoss77 i miss those days so much....
@@senanladnonu9552 we all do man
@@senanladnonu9552 ik I’m 4 years late
man the freaky trippy loading screens always mesmerized me O_O
Gold. After what felt like forever the game would load and it was an amazing feeling. I look at the kids playing next gen and think 'if only they knew'
aah the memorys the raw anticipation waiting upto 20 mins to see if it worked or u had to start all over again young ones dont know how good theve got it ,now its instant loading no waiting fkin awsome lol
VEDICPAGAN88 I can remember waiting way longer than 20, say over an hour, aw tape cassettes days a damn nightmare!!!!
burteriksson Look dipshit I use to own 1, enough said!!
@burteriksson you need to chill out, dude.
I miss the clever mechanical technologies back in the day
I didn't know cassette tapes were able to storage digital data. Thanks for this.
The only way you could enjoy what we now call PC games in the 80s. Nowadays Steam and GoG emulators make it so easy.
If I wanted to post this comment in 2021 I would say "still faster than GTA 5 online loading time"
Have you ever put it in a Walkman and listened to it because you can
+nickisdoge It'll just be high frequency noise...
i know i find it cool
A computer related radio show in Finland used to broadcast some small programs over radio that you could tape and play on your c64.
Löytyy vielä niitä kasetteja. En muista ratio ohjelman nimeä mutta me käytettiin samaa periaatetta pelien kopiointiin
jorge kake Silikoni oli radio-ohjelma. Tupladekkimankallahan niitä kopsittiin joo.
This is me back in the mid 80's,magical times,haha
Lucky that we only had to deal with cassettes for music here in the states. My neighbor had a commodore 64 that she barely let me play despite constant pestering. Everyone had an NES in the mid-late 80's except me, I had the 8 bit master system from sega. This is the first time I have seen a game load from a cassette, very interesting.
Brought up some childhood memories. Played that game a lot. Nice video, thank you!
Waiting time was not the worst thing guys... who remember - ?syntax error in line... ? :)
well done for copying from a commodore 64 action replay cartridge
Why is this so amazing to me?? I had a 32 bit IBM as my first PC, and always wondered how floppy disks worked, let alone THIS! Truly amazing.
I hate the annoying high pitched beep that TVs used to make
Does anyone remember the donkey on the roller coaster game I was addicted to that one 😊👍
Name this game..... Ww2 era, birds eye view, enemy can't shoot you, they try to trap you..... If you ever find this game please leave a message.... Thanks...
Let me see if I understood the process. You had to make the tape run so the computer could load all the info in its RAM, and then it ran straight out of the Commodore's RAM, right?
Right. Some games would not fit into RAM in its entirety, so the computer would ask you mid-game to reinsert the cassette to load more data into RAM.
Oh man... These were the days... Imagine the freaking PATIENCE we had those days! :) Now, if we load a website and it takes longer than 1 second, we get upset... Good stuff man!
yes, we had patience...kids these days have NO CLUE....
remember racing destruction set on tape...would take 10 mins+ to load a customised track/car... loved it though, the making it load was almost as much as satisfying as winning the race!
What A Great Video
OMG this makes me so emotional and happy ! :D I was just a kid and I LOVED this. Soo many good things I would never have had in my life if it was not for the C64 and my parents being so allowing of me exploring this little machine. Thank you for posting this. Feel grateful!
I remember as a kid, I wanted one more than anything. We were at a warehouse where they sold one. My dad said no. I put it back. Then some adult came and said, 'hmm, this looks interesting', and casually bought it. i was furious to say the least.
I remember that the epic "Gunship" took 20 min to load. I also recall when the read sensor in the player got misaligned because of wear. It could then take many, horrific days to finetune the cassette player to normal operation!
For the Commodore sound, click here ua-cam.com/video/W4umA3_9YNs/v-deo.html
Loading games from tape taught patience
I grew up with this and Id love to start collecting and playing c64 games again but damn....i dunno, to go back to those loading times again in this day and age is just a dealbreaker. But I still love the system
I had a 64 in 1983 and in 1990 i had it's succesor, the Cimmodore Amiga. This had a 3,5" disk slot and 512K memory. On the bottom of has a trapdoor with a input slot. For 50€ you could but a print with IC that booster the internal memory to 1M! I spended weeks playing "Defender of the crown". If you completed the game a maiden would kids you (the knight) of of you were realy lucky the showed her boobs. Great times.
When the games were loaded for ZX Spectrum, the sound, it was heard and the games were recognized by the sound, the counter may be more accurate, but you have to rewind each cassette to the beginning and reset the counter..
Aha I remember that my fiends and I used to dub a lot of C64 tapes, but each of my friends got a recorder with a different azimuth setting, so for each cassette I had to remember how to set that damn screw!
Shitttt!!!! ..... I came here to hear the terrible noise from the tape for 'old times' sake and to show my younger friends.
I'm 47 and it sounds like the sea. It did however annoy the shit out of their ears 😂
Great i guess now i do know how to setup a game trough the cassette tape player on my C64,can’t wait to try it out😁
my first computer. then commodore 128. then amiga 500+... then PC... memories of 80-90tis...
The good old days. First the turbo loader to load games/programs recorded at higher baudrate to speedup the load time 😁👍.
Was the audio played on the C64 transmitted solely through data, or was that audio actually on the tape too?
(actual noise it made)
Hi, I have Turbo Tape 64.
I did get a piece of paper on how to use and load.
And guess what... I lost it.
Well, I did
MY LIKE 1000 NOW
I'm not sure I get what you're asking - do you mean if the datasette plays music? It does not - it only reads data and transfers it from tape to computer, like a common diskdrive but with tape cassettes instead.
I just got my C64 from my parents, haven't touch it since -89, don't remember much but this video helped bringing back the memories some.. with the Turbo 250,
I cant still figure this out how yoi can play a video games on a cassette tapes
I remember those years, though on an Atari. What was even harder is if you created a program that took you probably an hour to make and saved it on cassette, often times than you expected it would never load again. That's why I eventually took to copying down all code to paper when I wanted to expand a project. The screen possibly blanks here to speed up the load time. Good times! I teach C64 stuff on my channel, so you are interested in checking it out if you want. Thanks for the memories.
i used a screwdriver to finetune stripes on the screen let u see if u turn the right way
Hi. I am thinking of buying a commodore 64 off of someone. I think the cords are with it. But it does'nt come with the commodore 64 tape player for games. The guy said you can just use a normal tape player with it. Do you know if that is true?
Nah, you cannot. The cassette player needs a special chord to hook into the computer. You can in some instances copy data tapes with a "normal" tape player but you cannot use them to load stuff into the computer. But these cassette players are pretty cheap anyway - use the lack of cassette player to lower the price instead.
I remember first hearing about tape games on the VIC-20/C64 and being like "how tf do those work" and now that I know how they work it's cool
My first game for the C64 was Cosmi's Forbidden Forest and yes, it was on tape. It would be another 6 months or so before Dad would break down and buy me a 1541 drive. I had to pull the "educational computer" card. You know, would help with my homework. :) Told him that they only made that kind of software on floppy disks. ;)
I turned off de C64 but i forgot the Commodore power supply plugged to the electrical outlet for 7 hours and I noticed he warmed. This can be harmful?
No, the computer should not be warm if it's turned off but the fat thing between the computer and the outlet may continue to warm up because there's still electricity in it. It should not be dangerous but it does consume energy of course. Unplug the chord from the outlet to be sure.
I did this in the mid 80's...legendary times
1000 kilobytes=1 megabyte
1000 megabytes=1 gigabyte
and this computer had only 64 kilobytes,compare this with current computers,laptops and smartphones :0)
Damn memories !!!! I'm nostalgic of this :')
That's crazy how does a tape work for videogames
Oh! There was a way better one from Compute! that's called Turbo Tape and you didn't have to preload anything. Seeing this old shit makes me wanna engineer new-age cassette drive.
I love retro computers but with sd cards... you can have the entire Atari or C64 universe of software on ONE sd card.
Ah yes, the 80's when we still had time to wait a couple of minutes to load a couple of thousands of bytes.....
WOW!!! I am back to 1992... Nice video!
+Don Avan
Sorry, but the VIC-20 was come in 1981, the Commodore 64 are from 1982. I am a geek from the beginning in homecomputers.
Hr... I know, but I am back to 1992 because I have got C64 in 1992!
The video can only bring you back as far as 1985.
Yes, but a was 12 years old when I got C64!
Take back to the late 80`s please.... what a time 🤓