Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Using a Generic Tape Recorder as an Atari Cassette Drive?

Posted by Cliff on from the blast-from-the-past dept.

JoeShmoe950 asks: "I recently got my hands on an Atari 65XE. It didn't come with a floppy or a cassette drive. I started programming when I realized there was no way to save my program. I wanted to ask you people if there is any way to wire up a normal cassette recorder to an Atari. What I need is the description for what part of a tape recorder(record, mic, speaker, etc) to each pin. I want to create an alternative to buying an Atari Cassette Drive from eBay."

5 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. A better place to ask would be... by Kris_J · · Score: 5, Informative

    The AtariAge 8-bit forum.

  2. odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I started programming when I realized there was no way to save my program."
    What a strange time to start programming.

    1. Re:odd by indros · · Score: 5, Funny

      I suspect this is what the developers of Duke Nukem Forever have done as well.

  3. there's some useful info here: by spiny · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www2.asw.cz/~kubecj/

    i'm more of an ST guy, but searching on google has found some info - it appears that the 65 tape drives are more akin to a modem than the Sinclair / Oric etc way of loading data, so it might not be that straightforward....

    --

    Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
    Leela: No he didn't.
  4. Atari 410 and it's ilk by Craig+Maloney · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The venerable 410 and its successors used a 13 pin Atari-specific interface called SIO (Serial Input/Output), just like every other Atari-specific device. It's a little trickier than just feeding in a standard cassette recorder input/output like the other computers. Plus the Atari tapes could feed in sound from the other track of the tape (which made load times mre berable). As an Atari owner, I was glad when I didn't have to load things from tape anymore, and pretty much abandoned tape when i got my disk drive. You might want to find a 1050 or XF551 and use that rather than attempt to retrofit a standard cassette tape to the Atari. Or if you want, find a broken Atari tape drive and study it. I think you'll find there's more going on there than you realize.

    Good luck with whatever you decide, and welcome to the world of Atari.

    Speaking of which, I haven't played Atari today. Need to get it out and rectify that