An MP3 of a good capture should be fine for this; I've used a ThinkPad with some homemade cables to feed a 5150 to load my copy of the diagnostics. These types of things have to be preserved; there are so few of them out there.
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MS Typing Tutor for the IBM PC on... cassette?
- Thread starter VileR
- Start date
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Mike,
I totally agree. I actually set out to do it this weekend but could not find a cable to connect my portable tape player to my laptop. I am going to look around the house a bit more and if I can't find a cable I will stop by the Radio Shack - hopefully part of the 80s still there!
I totally agree. I actually set out to do it this weekend but could not find a cable to connect my portable tape player to my laptop. I am going to look around the house a bit more and if I can't find a cable I will stop by the Radio Shack - hopefully part of the 80s still there!
luvit
Experienced Member
Yeah! An MP3 of that would be pretty awesome!
Based on this thread's OP of MS Typing Tutor on cassette: I wrote to the author, Dick Ainsworth, and he thinks this is a mistake or premature commitment to advertise the software on cassette. Remember, that companies had to have their story/ad submitted as early as 4-6weeks before printing, so the promise to release on cassette may have been misunderstood or it wasn't a firm decision before the story's submission.
Dick has only written one product for cassette and that was on a Bally Computer.
For what it's worth.. he's the author, not the publisher, but I'd think he's spot on.
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
luvit,
That is some damn fine detective work. Although, what is really required for the program to be on a cassette? I.E. would there need to be any fundamental change to the program code or is it more akin to putting a program from 360KB disk on a 720KB (i.e. medium changes but nothing is fundamentally altered)? If it is the latter the publisher could have made a cassette version without input/knowledge from the author. Don't get me wrong I agree with you that it probably was never produced (or is in a landfill with E.T. cartridges
) but it could a happened! :D
That is some damn fine detective work. Although, what is really required for the program to be on a cassette? I.E. would there need to be any fundamental change to the program code or is it more akin to putting a program from 360KB disk on a 720KB (i.e. medium changes but nothing is fundamentally altered)? If it is the latter the publisher could have made a cassette version without input/knowledge from the author. Don't get me wrong I agree with you that it probably was never produced (or is in a landfill with E.T. cartridges
) but it could a happened! :DHirmanpour
New Member
- Joined
- May 5, 2014
- Messages
- 2
The software was available both as a cassette and as a floppy (disk : PN 6024013 / Cassette : 6024018). Here are images of the physical product (from http://www.digibarn.com/stories/ibm-pc-25/erik-klein-photos/) :
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
I only see pictures of the DISK version. Are there pictures of the cassette as well?
Hirmanpour
New Member
- Joined
- May 5, 2014
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I haven't seen anywhere pictures of the cassette version (for the IBM PC).
SpidersWeb
Veteran Member
luvit,
That is some damn fine detective work. Although, what is really required for the program to be on a cassette? I.E. would there need to be any fundamental change to the program code or is it more akin to putting a program from 360KB disk on a 720KB (i.e. medium changes but nothing is fundamentally altered)? If it is the latter the publisher could have made a cassette version without input/knowledge from the author. Don't get me wrong I agree with you that it probably was never produced (or is in a landfill with E.T. cartridges
It'd depend on how complicated it was. The big difference with a cassette is you no longer have random access, so the program needs to be written so that's not required/expected.
Was playing a C64 game off tape a while back. Each time you progressed to the next level the tape would run for a minute, then you'd be in, but if you wanted to go back to level 1 you had to reload the entire game. The disk version would've had a key stroke to go back to the main menu etc.
Now I really want to build a cassette cable for the 5150 to play with it.
(Off topic - but I do have a CP/M-86 laptop that uses a micro-cassette which has a drive letter and rewinds the tape when you start up - I'll have to try it out properly, because it seems to treat it like a disk drive)
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Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Good point there. Although, I would venture to guess that any program written to run on an original 16KB 5150 machine probably does not do lots of random access to the disk (i.e. it probably just reads the whole thing straight into the memory) so it should adapt well to tape.
There were programs like that for the PC as well. Two of the more popular ones were Direct Tape Access (by Seagate then Veritas for Win 3.x and Win95) and Tape Disk (which ran under DOS). They worked by writing a FAT to the beginning of the Tape and then allows "random access" although in a very limited fashion. However, back in the day when a 40MB HDD was the norm being able to use a 4GB tape for storage was amazing!
luvit
Experienced Member
Yeah, we're on the same page, I'd love to see it too, but i;m not a believer. lol. The diagnostics on cassette were probably a pacifier for the few PCs that left the factory without floppy drives.
I wouldn't say a Part Number guarantees existence of the cassette version, especially with the legend of how Microsoft sold DOS to IBM. Part Numbers can be part of major planning, but they didn't follow through with the plans to put it on cassette. But with that said, the author said that Typing Tutor was ONLY about 100 lines of code in BASIC.. and it would be nice to have a couple programs in the plan for said PCs that were sold without floppy drives.. but to sell the cassette version separately from the PC would be insane.. since cassette software just wasn't in scope by anyone. I too, believe the cassette version with a Part Number was just over-planning, or due diligence at an early time of the PC.
You're right.. It's not a complicated program. The author has a site where he quotes Bill Gates said it was the most tangible 100 lines of code in BASIC. What is fascinating about his product is that it monitored the typist and determined which keys took a little longer than other keys. So it would repeat key strokes which you showed hesitation compared to other keystrokes.
BTW, I was patient on eBay and found the Radio Shack cassette cable for about $10
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Unfortunately though it seems the program wrote to the program disk (based on this article in PC Mag). To me that would preclude a straight disk to tape transfer and the program would need to be modified for tape use!
In case anyone gets a copy of the program the article above shows you how to patch it so that it supports the Dvorak layout instead of QWERTY!
SpidersWeb
Veteran Member
I'd love to see the actual code because I'm quite curious now.
I'm wondering if the line numbers were so high to allow room for the other submodules to be loaded. e.g. TT.BAS might only start at line ~2600 or similar. That would fit with the 100 line story, and the option to load from cassette (which for menus/submodules would need to load everything in one go if you didn't want to be pressing rewind all the time). Just a theory - no evidence to back it up.
Shadow Lord
Veteran Member
Well it took a while but I finally got the file. I have now made the recording of the tape. I used Audacity 2.05 in mono mode w/ 44KHz sampling and made a WAV file. I then converted the WAV file to an MP3 @ 320KB variable rate. For authenticity sake I used my Tandy CCR-81 Cassette Recorder. :D The file is ~3.4MB in MP3 format and 18.8MB in WAV format.
Here is a picture of the cassette disk (taken from an eBay listing as it was much faster):
I am going to send the MP3 to Mike. Mike can you please host it along side the regular diagnostic tape? If not I can try and find a file hosting/sharing service for us to use.
luvit
Experienced Member
Very cool. Thanks for taking time to make the audio file.
SomeGuy
Veteran Member
Did this cassette Advanced Diagnostics ever get posted anywhere?
Read through the thread ... reply #12 to be specific. I posted it here in 2014 and posted my original page on the Internet in 2008. WinWorldPC has a version too.
lyonadmiral
Veteran Member
I just bought a NOS Rev. 1 Guide to Operations that has a sealed Diagnostics tape in it. Although now I wonder where can you find a tape deck cable? I had one but I lost it.
SomeGuy
Veteran Member
Ah, then I have made a horrible mistake. Based on the filename I assumed it was "IBM Diagnostics 1.02 - 6081562". But squinting harder I do now see the page says "IBM Advanced Diagnostics". (1.02? 6081566)
So it is the regular diagnostics that need to be archived, if it is different.
That said, I've been trying all evening to get that MP3 file to load in to a 5150 motherboard. I verified the board could write and read a simple hello world program to cassette. But it looks like someone else has gotten it to work, so it must just be the machines I'm using to play back the file.
HoJoPo
Veteran Member
I just bought a NOS Rev. 1 Guide to Operations that has a sealed Diagnostics tape in it. Although now I wonder where can you find a tape deck cable? I had one but I lost it.
If I recall correctly, IBM used the same 5 pin DIN connector and pinout for cassette as the TRS-80 computers. Search e-bay for "trs-80 cassette cable" and you'll find a number of them for sale.
Or, if you have the parts, you can build one yourself: http://gtp-tech.com/ebay/ccr81-cable.htm