Commodore 1530 tape speed calibration

[@bozimmerman]

It is a good day when another Jan derogee video comes out. Thanks!

[@nekononiaow]

This is a really neat idea. I have a bunch of datasettes which most likely will require some tweaking so I am definitely going to be using your program in the future!

[@ElukeNL]

When XKCD and Technology Connections referenced groundhog day I didn’t watch it, but now the one and only Janderogee does I finally watched that film. And enjoyed it. Now I understand the ‘wrong music’ joke too. Really subtle :D. You clearly put a lot of effort in not just your projects, but the video’s as well.

[@janderogee]

thanks for noticing

[@akiko009]

Ah. Those were the days. I still remember the excitement of replacing that thing with the 1541. And then hacking the 1541 to be faster.

[@janderogee]

hahaha... yeah, I know. Once I've got my 1541-II diskdrive I never looked back (a few weeks after I got the disk drive I bought a final cartridge III, because of the speed-loader, that really improved the performance and the fun). But nostalgia of tapes cannot be beat.

Great video!

[@riversedge64]

I am fixing Datasettes, I did tones of dumps of tapes. Never had issues with tape speed. I had issues only with old tapes affected with a moisture. The first important thing when you want to deal with old datasette which wasn't used for a years is to change the belt. If belt is old, stretched and deformed, you will have problems with loading games from a tape. The speed tolerance for C64 is around 5%. If the speed will be higher than 5%, the game will not load properly. There is no need to aligment anything if datasette works properly and loads games from various tapes.

[@janderogee]

You certainly have a point regarding playback. But if your recorder is 5% too fast and the playback device is 5% too slow, then playback will experience a 10% speed error. Which is not helping and may be problematic. So if you want to record a tape, a master tape, so a friend could play it. Should you at least not check the speed of the recording device. Because if that works then the playback error will be 5% less. Now, this is worst case scenario and sure... a lot of things will work fine, but how do you know everything is fine if you never check? This video is about checking and adjusting. In many cases you really do no need to do anything, but if you want to, with this simple set of tools, you now can.

[@carloscatano1750]

Fantastic!

[@BreadboxBitfall]

Testing more Datasettes 😂

[@Macs]

Nice to learn today so much on what was at the day an obscure device. On the same note I have a program and cassette used to align the heads of the 1560 with the screw in the small hole that is in the middle just over the buttons. It would be interesting to have a video on that like this one.

[@janderogee]

Yeah, I can related to that, when I was young tapes had a mystery around them because you could hear the data (if used in a regular player)... yet sometimes it didn't work. Then I got an alignment kit for my birthday but once I started twisting that screwdriver somehow the problems only got worse (since I had recorded tapes with the previous head alignment, a thing I did not understand back then). A video about the truth, mysteries and misconceptions is a thing I should put on my "to do" list, thanks for the tip, it is indeed a topic that deserves attention.

[@der.Schtefan]

If you only have a malfunctioning datasette, how do yiu load the program? BTW, the counting solution is super smart. Just record the spinning with your phone, and slow it down and count the playback

[@janderogee]

Interesting question. However, if you have only a datasette, then how would you put the program from the internet into the computer. But let's assume that the speed is really really bad, nothing will load, you've service the device, the belts are in perfect condition, all gears are smooth, the only things wrong is the speed setting, well, then rotate the speed setting all the way to the left, try again, move it a few degrees... try again, keep repeating until it does load something and then load the program to finetune the setting.

[@KGE64]

LOL