SofaCas bug report thread

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Van waal70

Supporter (4)

afbeelding van waal70

23-05-2016, 09:48

The results are very, very good! I managed to salvage three tapes this weekend and I've got the rest of my cassettes lined up; if only there were more hours in a day Wink

Sofacas picked up on the data very well and the converted stuff I reviewed, does not have any artifacts at all. Very clean conversion.
I also encountered no bugs.

My hat is off to you, Louthrax. I will continue my rescue-effort with sofacas!

Van Manuel

Ascended (19270)

afbeelding van Manuel

23-05-2016, 20:30

Which tapes are you doing?

Van Louthrax

Prophet (2436)

afbeelding van Louthrax

23-05-2016, 22:04

Aha, had the same question in mind as Manuel Smile Glad the tools has been useful to you, feel free to post old stuff you have made here, or contact us if you have tapes that would need some preservation/archiving (i.e. not available on the web Smile).

Van waal70

Supporter (4)

afbeelding van waal70

24-05-2016, 10:27

The tapes I'm starting out on is a bunch of MSX-BASIC programs I wrote or edited. Still a couple to go. Really pleased with finding "the roman empire"-text-based game, which was the very last program on the third tape.

Then a couple of compilation tapes. Not sure what is on there as some of them have their case missing.
And then, finally, I have some offical game tapes as well, I'll make a list to see whether that's interesting from an archiving perspective, OK?

Van Wild_Penguin

Hero (644)

afbeelding van Wild_Penguin

10-07-2016, 16:40

I've got no bug report to report but something I'd like to share (and I couldn't find a Sofacas discussion thread anywhre) Smile

First I'd like to thank you for Sofacas, it's the best way to control playback speed and baud rate I have found. I found out that with an SVI-728 and Toshiba HX-10 the limit is at 3428.57Bd (a 48000 multiple). The SVI is a bit more picky on the volume, and sine wave seems to work better for both of these machines. Any idea why sine wave works better?

(I've got a Sony Hit-Bit to test but I'm not that interested currently to dig it up for this - and also the NMS8255, but the cassette port is way at the back and on my current setup quite difficult to reach).

Van Louthrax

Prophet (2436)

afbeelding van Louthrax

10-07-2016, 17:11

waal70 wrote:

Then a couple of compilation tapes. Not sure what is on there as some of them have their case missing.
And then, finally, I have some offical game tapes as well, I'll make a list to see whether that's interesting from an archiving perspective, OK?

Sure, we need to save those old games while it's still time, even the crappy ones!

Van Louthrax

Prophet (2436)

afbeelding van Louthrax

10-07-2016, 17:24

Wild_Penguin wrote:

I've got no bug report to report but something I'd like to share (and I couldn't find a Sofacas discussion thread anywhre) Smile

First I'd like to thank you for Sofacas, it's the best way to control playback speed and baud rate I have found. I found out that with an SVI-728 and Toshiba HX-10 the limit is at 3428.57Bd (a 48000 multiple). The SVI is a bit more picky on the volume, and sine wave seems to work better for both of these machines. Any idea why sine wave works better?

(I've got a Sony Hit-Bit to test but I'm not that interested currently to dig it up for this - and also the NMS8255, but the cassette port is way at the back and on my current setup quite difficult to reach).

Thanks Wild Penguin.

I noticed the same +/- 3500 bauds limitation on my Toshiba HX-10. I think sd_snatcher told me some filter has been removed or lightened on the MSX 2 machines, that might be the cause (even if my VG 8020 works well at 3700 bauds too).

About the sine wave that works better, I'm a bit surprised : square wave always worked better (or same depending on the machines) here. I think most eletronics anyway converts more or less a square signal into a sine one (like smoothening the edges...). Some investigations for openMSX emulation have been started on the circuitry and how MSX reacts to different frequencies / signals.

I noticed here that I had best results using the highest baud rate allowed by my sound card (I'm using 192K Hz !). Be sure to set SofaCas AND your sound card settings at the same baud rate for the specified output device (you usually have that in the sound card manufacturer's settings tool).

I also noticed that on my sound card having a mike plugged in the the "mike" plug causes some interferences on the audio output (nothing audible though)! I'm now using the LINE-IN plug to transfer from MSX to PC and it works OK (have to amplify the volume a lot though).

Van Wild_Penguin

Hero (644)

afbeelding van Wild_Penguin

10-07-2016, 18:04

Louthrax wrote:

I noticed here that I had best results using the highest baud rate allowed by my sound card (I'm using 192K Hz !). Be sure to set SofaCas AND your sound card settings at the same baud rate for the specified output device (you usually have that in the sound card manufacturer's settings tool).

I also noticed that on my sound card having a mike plugged in the the "mike" plug causes some interferences on the audio output (nothing audible though)! I'm now using the LINE-IN plug to transfer from MSX to PC and it works OK (have to amplify the volume a lot though).

I'm using sofacas via Wine on Linux! Also, I have nothing else than a integrated sound card on my MB. Currently, I was using pulseaudio for the test, and last time I checked it chose the right mixing rate depending on the requested mixing rate. (I also tried on ALSA, which is kind of locked at dmix at 48kHz, unless I edit some file under /usr/var - forgot which one).

But your comment made me remember I can actually see under linux what mixing rate the HW is using under /proc/asound. Conclusion: My MBs integrated Realtek device is capped at 48000kHz if using digital out, and to 44100 if using analog out! I'm not sure from where to verify the playback speeds supported, but that may indeed be the case (I need to check if my old MBP can do better). EDIT: Whoah, I noticed that my sound card can actually go up to 192000Hz! I need to check if this makes any difference in MSX software loading =)

I also noticed that line out works a bit better than mic out.

Van Sonus

Supporter (10)

afbeelding van Sonus

09-01-2017, 14:10

Hello,

I've just started using SofaCas to convert TX81Z cassette files.
All 32 blocks from a wav file are detected in the command window.
The cas file should have 3320 bytes but only 3072 bytes are saved ???

sofacas rec TX.cas -iTX.wav -f44100Hz -H0.1s -s0.1s

Van Louthrax

Prophet (2436)

afbeelding van Louthrax

09-01-2017, 14:48

Hi Sonus,

How did you compute that 3320 size? Send me that .WAV file if you want, I can have a quick look at it.

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