MT-BASE copy DB

Supporter (7)

08-02-2021, 15:39

Hello, I'm new to this forum but still have a MSX which I bought about 35 years ago. I'm not a frequent user anymore but I like to retrieve a built-up photo/negatives database from tape. I still can load the data into MT-Base but like to have it on my PC and try to load it into another database. Also fine to load in into my Atari-ST/Superbase.
Does anyone have a solution to get it from tape to a file on my pc?
Thank you.

Por Meits

Scribe (6338)

08-02-2021, 16:02

Before trying the software part, do you own the required hardware to pull this off? Either an MSX and PC with a diskdrive or an MSX with a card reader cartridge? If not, you're stuck before trying conversion.

If the database itself is ascii, you might be able to edit it quite well in notepad++ to make it a csv file which you can open in excel where you can text to column it.

Por Winfryd

Supporter (7)

08-02-2021, 17:17

Hello Meits, good question. What I have is a Mitsubischi ML-F80 MSX1 pc, MT-Base on a cartridge and a datarecorder. Hence the question how to pull it off. I can imagine a MSX with a floppy-drive is the easy way. Also I found MT2ASCII ( http://pascal.hansotten.com/uploads/msx/mt2ascii.pdf ) in Dutch, which is a little program to convert/save as ascii. But then again, where do I put the output when I have no floppy-drive.
I thought, maybe someone has a brilliant simple solution like using the printerport or something.
Thanks for any thoughts.

Por Meits

Scribe (6338)

08-02-2021, 17:37

Maybe you could transfer the files to your computer by sampling your tape and have an emulator load it.
I bet user Casduino could help you out on that.

Por sdsnatcher73

Paragon (1666)

08-02-2021, 18:37

I have been recording some tape games and converting them to TSX. But for your purposes just recording to WAV will be fine. I use Audacity to record the sound on tape. Make sure the recording level is at about 70-80% of maximum and that you record in mono. The resulting WAV will then work fine in openMSX in my experience. I have no experience in MT-BASE but if it can read from tape and then save to disk you’ll do the following:

Choose an MSX2 with diskdrive, e.g. the Philips NMS8245 from the Hardware menu
Insert the MT-BASE rom file in slot A, the machine will reboot and start MT-BASE
insert the WAV file in the tape recorder
Create an empty directory on your computer
Insert the directory into floppy drive A: (using DirAsDisk feature)
Now you can load the database from tape, and save it to disk

The resulting file will be in the directory on your PC.

The next steps would be:

Place MSXDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM and MT2ASCII.COM in the directory with the saved database
Remove the tape and MT-BASE cartridge in openMSX, the machine will reboot into MSX-DOS
Run MT2ASCII as described in the manual

Por Winfryd

Supporter (7)

08-02-2021, 19:03

Wow, sounds like a plan. Thanks for this sdsnatcher73, great how-to. Did not think about the emulator way. Thanks to Meits also for the tip. One thing, I don't seem to find the compiled MT2ASCII.com anywhere. Propably needed when the DB file is exclusive for MT_base. Anyone info about the compiled program?

Por Winfryd

Supporter (7)

08-02-2021, 19:07

O, another thing. How do I use MT-BASE in the emulator. Can I make and use an image of my cartridge?

Por Meits

Scribe (6338)

08-02-2021, 20:37

Maybe the .com address of file-hunter has it

Por ToriHino

Hero (654)

09-02-2021, 06:55

Winfryd wrote:

I thought, maybe someone has a brilliant simple solution like using the printerport or something.
Thanks for any thoughts.

You could try this solution.

Por TheKid

Paragon (1108)

09-02-2021, 08:34

Meits wrote:

Maybe the .com address of file-hunter has it

Yeah, and maybe in the games\msx1\dsk directory.
Apperently there also is a msx1 game called mt-base

Por tfh

Prophet (2795)

09-02-2021, 08:44

TheKid wrote:

Meits wrote:

Maybe the .com address of file-hunter has it

Yeah, and maybe in the games\msx1\dsk directory.
Apperently there also is a msx1 game called mt-base

I heard from "certain" people that that "cracked" version in the games\msx1\dsk is a bit crooked, but.. that same "certain person" also sent me a corrected file. It can be found in that directory & in the Programs directory.