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Messages - Remzi

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76
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: Setting up the adapter and how to use
« on: September 07, 2019, 10:59:43 AM »
Head Alignment Without the Real C64

Download this RAR file and open it on your desktop.


www.load64.com/up/auto.rar


Put the tape in the datasette and press play.


Find and run the file headalign.bat in that folder.


After the azimuth alignment loads up
go to datasette control and fast forward and
go to datasette control and start


You will see the lines.At this point ALT+W for 1 or 2 seconds to catch up with the real datasette.


Use the screw driver to align the head.Try to make the lines thin and straight as much as possible.


This is not easy,you will have to try a few times.

77
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: From *.tap to datasette.
« on: September 01, 2019, 09:00:52 PM »
Yes you can record a game to tape and copy that to floppy disk after.
But that takes very long.

You can write to disks with XU1541,XUM1541 or Zoomfloppy,direct from PC to Floppy Drive.

If you have a SD2IEC or PI1541,you can connect it to your disk drive in series and use a diskcopy program like SDBrowse or Dracopy.


78
LOAD64 USB Tape Interface / Setting up the USB Tape interface and how to use
« on: August 15, 2019, 10:43:26 PM »


This tape interface can be used with any Commodore computer system with a tape/datasette port.Instead of using cassette tapes,we will be using MP3 audio files as medium with modern devices like smart phones,desktop/laptop or tablet PCs.

If you want to use a tablet PC or a phone,there is only one setting you need to do which is the sound volume level.You should play the MP3's anywhere from 75% to 100%.

If you want to use a Windows PC,follow the steps below,

1.Press Windows Key and R to open RUN window and type mmsys.cpl



2.Double click on Speakers and go to levels.Set it to 80%
3.Enhancements tab,tick the box says "Disable all enhancements"
4.Go to advanced and choose 48000 Hz
5.Spatial sound tab - set it to OFF and click on the OK below.



Loading games from the website

VIC20 users,press the Shift and Run/Stop keys.Go to this page and click on one of the games.

C64 users,Press shift and run/stop keys.Go to this website and click on the one of the games.When you see the FOUND screen,press space bar.

Converting games to MP3 files:

You can find lots of VIC20 games on this server also C64 games on this site

DOWNLOAD this rar file and unrar it to your desktop.
It is a little batch script for converting the programs to WAV files,trimming down the pilot tone and converting it to MP3 files.
Copy the PRG,T64 and P00 files in to the newfiles folder.
If they are for C64,double click on the C64.bat file.If they are for VIC20,run the VIC20.bat.
When the conversion is complete,you will find MP3 files only in the newfiles folder.Other files will be deleted.


You can make gameplay screenshots by running the game with the winvice emulator and pressing the ALT+C keys.You can embed that image to mp3 file by using the mp3tag program and use add cover option.

Loading with android app TAPDANCER:



There is an android app called Tapdancer.This app converts the TAP,PRG,T64 and P00 files to sound so you can load it on your Commodore.Unfortunately this app hasn't been updated for the new android versions so it was taken off the app store.
If you have a 5-6 year old device laying around,you can DOWNLOAD Tapdancer and give it a try.

79
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: Share your results
« on: August 08, 2019, 08:19:03 PM »
Thank you for joining the forum and giving an update Marty.

I'm glad to see,it worked well for you.

80
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: Setting up the adapter and how to use
« on: July 24, 2019, 06:41:22 PM »
If you want your turbo load games to load twice quicker,you can reduce the avarage bit duration and increase the frequency.



You might need to carry on some maintenance work on your tape deck like cleaning the heads/pinch roller also change the drive belt.
If you have a new old stock tape deck and cassette,try avarage bit duration 117,that is the lowest I could manage.


81
Other MODs / Powering The PI1541 From The Tape Port
« on: March 12, 2019, 01:21:25 PM »


I tried to power the PI1541 through the USB port first.It was getting stuck at the "searching for" screen.

I checked the voltages on the USB pads and the GPIO pins and found out there is a 0.7V voltage drop between them.That shows the USB power protection and regulator circuit is using quite a bit of power.
So I connected the power from the tape port direct to the GPIO pins.





It is possible to reduce the power consumption of Raspberry PI by disabling the HDMI,WIFI,Bluetooth,Ethernet and USB ports.I added the commands to config.txt file on the SD card.

Code: [Select]
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt
tvservice -o
dtparam=act_led_trigger=none
dtparam=act_led_activelow=on
tee /sys/devices/platform/soc/3f980000.usb/buspower >/dev/null

kernel_address=0x1f00000
force_turbo=1
I tried hooking it up to my LCD TV with the HDMI cable and found out it was still working.So these commands didn't do a thing.I will try to contact Steve White and ask him about this.

82
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / Re: Step by step guide for the internal battery mod
« on: February 18, 2019, 06:24:49 PM »
Adjusting th step down buck converter:

Apply 12V DC to input of the module and monitor the output with a multimeter.Turn the screw clockwise to drop the voltage to 5V or 5.1V.










83
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / Step by step guide for the internal battery mod
« on: February 13, 2019, 10:55:55 PM »
A friend from Italy asked me to help him making this mod.I will go in to more detail.

STEP 1 Building the battery pack:

Shopping list.

1 X Battery Charger Protection Board Module

6 X 18650 Batteries

1 X DC-DC Step down buck converter

1 X Soldering Iron

1 X Multimeter







Making the PSU connector cable:

You need the cut off the DIN connector from an old C64 PSU.



Plug in the DIN connector and find the continuity to the leg in the image above.


84
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / Re: Internal Battery Pack Mod for C64C
« on: January 12, 2019, 07:50:22 PM »

85
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / Internal Battery Pack Mod for C64C
« on: December 16, 2018, 11:50:31 AM »



Correction to the video!!! +12V DC is taken from the third pin from left on the userport output and connected to DC to DC step down voltage regulator.



This is how it looks like once it's finished.



First thing you have to do for this project is disconnecting one of the legs of the resistor at the R19.
This is very important as it overheats when we are running on DC only.
Remove the fuse as it's useless and also if you plug in the regular power supply by accident,removed fuse will save your C64C.



I salvaged 6 Li-ion 18650 batteries from an old laptop battery pack.I recharged them using a li-ion charger and made sure they are all at close capacity before making a 3S pack.
This is the battery protection board that I used for this project.



Other side of the board.



That is where I soldered the +12V out from the battery pack.



Also (-) from the battery pack soldered to ground.



We also need 5V to run our C64.For this I used a Step Down Voltage Regulator.
As it is adjustable,you need to set it to 5V before connecting it to your C64 board.



In the image above,you can see how I connected the voltage regulator to the board.




I used an old router power supply for this project.It provides 12V at 1A.
It can charge the battery pack in about 1,5 hours and gives me up to 2 hours play time.
If you want to charge while using your C64,you should get an at least  1.5A rated power supply.



This is the diagram,how you need to wire up the power connector.



This is the 2.4Ghz AV transmitter module.If you want to buy a ready made one,follow this link.


For the TOD clock signal generator,take a look at Pasi Lassila's Blog Entry.

I ordered a NE555 Adjustable Module for the TOD generator.Once I recieved it,I will update this tutorial.

Check out this video.

86
DC/Battery Powered Commodore 64 / External Battery Pack Mod
« on: December 16, 2018, 10:30:27 AM »
This is an experimental project.Try at your own risk

Board no 250469 (short board) the 10 ohm resistor at the R19 overheats.Needs to be disconnected before using DC only power.

I am not sure about long boards.I will test them out.

Running the C64 on DC only is not a new thing.It's been tried many times.Check out Ilker's Project.

The only thing doesn't work with the C64 is TOD chip.Which is used by very few software.It is possible to do a small modification on the motherboard by adding a 555 timer to overcome this problem.I haven't tried it myself yet so I can't say much about it just yet.

Here is the finished Battery pack,



(That 3.5mm jack is used for powering my SD2IEC so I don't have to use the cassette port.)

This is a regular power bank with standart USB 5V and 9V/12V/15V adjustable power outputs.

Idea is feeding 12V or 15V DC (depending on the C64) to AC rail on the userport output.And of course 5V DC to 5V rail.

5V output of this power bank is useless as under load it drops down to 4.5V.C64 still works with this voltage but SD2IEC is not really happy about it.

That's the reason I had to use a step down converter to get a solid 5V output from the power bank.



The photo above shows the edge connector,power switch and the converter module installed to the front panel.






I soldered the GND and the 12/15V wires to the DC socket.This power bank came with a small push switch on it's side.I couldn't find any info about the purpose of this switch,I tried everything.I came to a conclusion that this switch is useless so i converted to the reset switch for the C64.



I cut the trace on the board,soldered the reset line on the other leg.

There are a couple of issues with this battery pack.

1.Datasette doesn't work.It seems like it's not powerful enough to supply enough current.I'm testing out larger power banks.

2.You can charge the battery pack with a regular 5V 2A USB charger while you are using your C64 but power bank gets really hot after half an hour.Culprit is the inductor right next to the micro USB connector.Some sort of a heatsink or cooling fan might be an option.Or I can use a different power bank charged with a 12V power source.


87
Wireless Audio Video Solutions / 2.4Ghz AV Transmitter,Receiver Kit
« on: December 15, 2018, 01:45:42 PM »
Price (Including postage,paypal fees) and delivery time
£15 to UK,2nd Class large letter,2-5 days
£18 to Europe,Airmail (non tracked) 3-10 days
£20 to rest of the world,Airmail (non tracked) 3-15 days

Buy It Now





Do you want to place your C64 on your coffee table and enjoy retro gaming in your living room on a massive TV set without running a cable from the C64 and the TV? This is it,what you've been waiting for.Make your beloved C64 portable.

It runs on 2.4Ghz frequency which is not that crowded as it used to be.Most internet modem routers are running on 5.8Ghz these days.
Your only enemy is bluetooth devices like phones,headsets even computer mice.If you turn them all of,you should get no interference.Unless you live in flats and your neighbours are using 2.4Ghz WI FI  >:(

The main problem we have with our 64's is,composite video out is non standart.Which leads to some TV's and monitors giving very good result,some are ok but not that good,bit of colour leak,dot crawl,shadowing and some are not working at all.

If you want to use this wireless kit,you have to try the wired composite cable with your screen first and find out if your TV can give good results.

If you get good result with the wired cable,you will get the exact same result with this wireless kit.

If not,please don't buy it.I am not accepting returns on this product.



Transmitter is powered by the pin 8 of the C64's AV port.Most C64C's have the 5V connected to the pin 8.But some breadbins with the very early boards are not connected.This is the reason before buying this kit,you have to make sure you have 5 volts on your AV port.

You will need a multimeter and have to stick 2 cables into the port while it is switched on.Be very careful,don't short it.



Black (Ground) to Pin2, Red (Positive) to pin 8

If you get 0V means it is not connected to live 5V.You need to modify the motherboard which requires some soldering skills and equipment.

If you get less than 4.7V or more than 5.2 volts,your PSU is on it's way out,replace it.

If you have any questions,please post it under this topic.



88
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: 1530USB Adapter not working.
« on: November 24, 2018, 06:31:03 PM »
No probs mate.I will post a replacement on monday morning.Sandwiched PCB is getting damaged in transport I guess,need to design a single one.

89
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: 1530USB Adapter not working.
« on: November 24, 2018, 07:51:59 AM »


Can you try to wiggle the adapter in and out while the tape is playing.

90
1530USB Datasette to PC Adapter / Re: 1530USB - Whining
« on: October 18, 2018, 07:23:55 PM »
Thanks for the update.I hope it will serve you well for many years to come.

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