[Coco] Difficulty loading CAS files - real Coco2 from PC audio out and CocoTape.exe

[Robert Gault]

Eric Keppel wrote:
> Hi Folks!  I'm new here, and did a search of several months previous
> posts without finding and answer to my situation.  My Google-fu is
> usually strong, but it has failed me, so I thought I would ask...
>
> I have a real Coco2 with 16K and ECB 1.1 and have made up a cable to
> connect the 5-pin DIN cassette connector on the Coco to the PC line-in
> and line-out. With this setup, I am able to CSAVE and CLOAD any basic
> programs that I write myself by saving and playing WAV files.  I've
> tested it and can save and load just fine.
>
> However, I have had no success in loading and running even very
> small .CAS files I have found around the web, using CocoTape to play
> them as audio files into the Coco2.
>
> For example CRAZMAZ.CAS and MUSIC.CAS are only 5272b and 953b
> respectively, so I know they will fit in memory, but when I CLOAD them,
> they appear to load and then there is nothing but garbage when I try to
> LIST them.  EXEC doesn't seem to work either, and I have tried to CLOADM
> with CocoTape's -cloadm option, which also seems to load, but then won't
> EXEC or LIST.   Even CAS files that look like they *should* fit in
> memory like INVADERS.CAS which is 8114b gets an OM error after the load
> for a while, which IIRC is an Out of Memory error.
>
> Is there something I am doing wrong here?  Maybe I don't know how to use
> CocoTape properly or is there another program like CocoTape that will do
> what I need better?
>
> I would also like to be able to load DSK files and/or Rom PAKs into this
> Coco2, but I don't know if that is possible with this setup ands no
> physical disk drive, disk basic rom pak or anything - just the Coco
> itself connected to the PC via cassette interface.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> --Eric

Your biggest problem is the limited amount of RAM which you may not be able to increase. 
However, it's possible the .cas files are corrupted. If you post urls for these tape 
programs, we can test them to see if they are good. That would indicate whether it is a 
memory or tape loading problem.