[Coco] Old cassette tapes

[Allen Huffman]

> On Apr 25, 2020, at 10:26 PM, Luis Oliveira <lfl.tr at soeiro.com.br> wrote:
> 
> I'm looking at how to record old Coco cassette tapes in order have them 
> permanently digitized as a wav file, which can be "loaded" by an emulator.
> 
> The problem is that the material is too old and the sound is not good. What 
> can be done to improve it? Has someone done something like it?

A few years ago, I found my old box of VIC-20 tapes and did just this.

Since I did not have access to the original hardware, I used a higher end home stereo deck I had. I played them and recorded them in stereo WAV files at a high bitrate. Some tapes, due to alignment differences, played one channel louder than the other. I figured by capturing both sides I would get better results.

I was then able to find tools to convert them into files used by the emulator, keeping my original audio recordings for safekeeping.

My tapes were from 1982, and one was jammed and would not turn. When I find them again, I am sending them off to someone who has an original Commodore tape unit — he may be able to recover a few files I could not.

Good luck!

		— Allen