2hex2hex.exe and hex2cas.exe readme file In firs time excuse me for possible grammatic mistakes. --------------------------------------------------------- This programs is shareware. 1. What for are necessary these programs. These programs are intended for those people who uses program wav2cas.exe For those who does not know that this such below I quote a cut from Atari 8-Bit Computers: Frequently Asked Questions ( It on mine a unique part of a file where there are no grammatic mistakes:)) ______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: 9.6) How can I convert my commercial boot tape into a cassette Image file? Mailto:ernest@pi.net (Ernest R. Schreurs) writes: For those of you that like ALL classic Atari software, there is now a Way to store all software that has been recorded on cassette tapes on The hard disk of your PC. I have written a program that is similar to The SIO2PC utility written by Nick Kennedy. But this one is intended For use with cassette software. You will need the following items: Any PC equipped with a sound card and about 50 to 100 Megs of free Disk space to work with. The sound card should be able to sample sound At a sample rate of 44.100 Hz mono. The sample must be recorded into a. Wav file. You need the wav2cas program to convert the .wav file to a .cas file. The .cas file is a digital cassette image file that only contains the Data that is on the cassette tape. Once you have that, you can throw Away the .wav file. The .cas files are typically 16 to 64K, so they Are relatively small. The wav2cas and cas2sio programs should be available from the archives Of Umich by now. They have been put together in one zip file Wav2cas.zip, along with the documentation and the 'C' source code. You can download it through the web interface at the URL http://www.umich.edu/~archive/atari/8bit/Emulators/Peripherals/wav2cas.zip Note the capital in Emulators and in Peripherals. Thanks to William Kendrick for helping me get it uploaded there! You can also try the gopher stuff: Gopher://gopher.archive.umich.edu:7055/11/atari/8bit/Emulators/Peripherals/ Steven Tucker, the author of APE, has added support for this file Format as of version 1.15 of APE. It looks real neat, so try that out Too! Thanks to Steven for adding a nice user interface for these Cassette images. He did a nice job. I am hoping other using are Willing to write some programs to get more enjoyment out of this Underrated storage medium. My stuff is available totally free for personal use, so I hope you Enjoy it. Read the docs about the conditions. Keep those XL's/XE's humming. If you have any questions feel free to E-mail me: mailto:ernest@pi.net --------------------------------- 11.5) What is SIO2PC? Original text by Dave Paterson, mailto:davepat@total.net SIO2PC is a cable and software combination that lets you use your PC as up To 4 drives for your 8-bit. Drives can be SD, ED, DD or custom sizes up to 16 megs. SIO2PC also lets you redirect the printer output to your PC Printer or to a file on the PC. High speed drives are emulated (a la K-Products US Doubler). All these functions are transparent at the Atari end; you never notice the Difference between SIO2PC and regular drives, except that the SIO2PC drives Are faster than any others (except Ramdisks and PBI interface drives). Several different designs for the SIO2PC hardware are floating around. Best Contact the author for the latest details. SIO2PC 4.16 is shareware by Nick Kennedy, mailto:nkennedy@cswnet.com ( http://www.cswnet.com/~nkennedy/sio2pc.htm ) ____________________________________________________________________________ 2. What such of .hex file? When the program wav2cas.exe will finish the work on your winchester two files xxxxxxxx.cas and xxxxxxxx.hex will be created (by default) Below I quote a cut from a file wav2cas.txt written Ernest R. Schreurs. ( Author wav2cas.exe and cas2sio.exe) ____________________________________________________________________________ If the decoding process does not result in a clean cassette image file, we Are forced to investigate what the problem is. But how do we know how the Program did? Apart from the cassette image file, the program will also Output a file containing the data in a hexadecimal notation. It has an Extension of .hex, and it is a simple text file. It can be viewed with any Decent text viewer. It will contain a line of text for each data record. It contains the length of the PRWT, the length of the data record, and all The bytes. The marker bytes, the control byte and the checksum byte are Also simply treated as data, so all bytes are visible. The checksum is Computed, and it is compared to the checksum byte. The result of the Comparison is indicated at the end of the text line, by either putting "ok" Or "bad" at the end of the line. The computed checksum is stored next to The checksum byte, so we can see what the current value is, and what the Expected value is. Lines that are marked bad mean trouble. If the record Length has a weird value, you will know that there is a problem with Recognizing the bits, maybe because of erroneous mark or space counts. If We could simply correct these problems within this text file, we would be Able to recover bad tapes. This would only be possible if we know what Bytes are missing. The missing or incorrect bytes can then be corrected. But then we would need a program that will take a .hex file and convert That to a .cas file. This should be fairly easy, but I have been too busy To write such a program. _____________________________________________________________________________ I have found a little time and has written such program. 3. Program hex2cas.exe Program is completely written on the assembler. It is intended for converting .hex file in .cas file, as so is clear from the name. Program works only with .hex file not containing "bad" blocks. (All blocks of standard length also come to an end "ok"). If .hex file contains " bad " block program will finished work at detection "bad" block also will give out the message, .cas file will be created only up to first of "bad" of the block.:( You must have necessary only "clean" .hex file. EXAMPLE: type in the command line - hex2cas.exe my_file.hex new_file.cas In result on a disk the file new_file.cas ready to "use" will be created. 4. Program 2hex2hex.exe For creating "clean" a .hex file, and consequently .cas file, you must write a .wav file, "to process" it with the help wav2cas.exe,and at the best .cas file will be ready already at this stage. Then disappears necessity for these utilities. But in practice ,my experience, again created file contains "bad" blocks. And these of "bad" blocks not always coincide with "bad" blocks in .hex file sreated in fist time. You must now to combine in new file all of "ok" blocks. For automation of this process, and consequently decrease of time, you can take program 2hex2hex.exe. EXAMPLE: type in the command line - 2hex2hex.exe 1_file.hex 2_file.hex new_file.hex As well as hex2cas.exe program 2hex2hex.exe is completely written on the assembler. Most important that you should make for work of this program it to ensure concurrences of quantity lines in both files. Basically, this criterion not is so critical. Main for correct work program it that same block in files 1_file.hex and 2_file.hex had same number of a line in both files. Now if same block in both files "bad", in new _ file.hex instead of this block will be created the empty line !!! ATENTION!!! First and last lines of .hex file must be empty ! (Standart of .hex file ) Read new _ file.hex and if instead of blocks there are empty lines that to you one more pass is necessary. (Write .wav file "to process" it with the help wav2cas.exe.............. Etc.) New_file.hex with empty lines can be used for work with 2hex2hex.exe 4. Conclusion Algorithm of both programs is simple, therefore bugs is not present. (I have not found).If you will be found bugs, of what I doubt, inform me. Well that's all that I wanted to write in this file. Again, excuse me for possible grammatic mistakes. P.S. I have a problem with building sio2pc cabile. I can`t purchase of the chip MAX 232, i can`t find it in my city, and money is not present on purchase it in the other place (i am student), therefore,if who has an opportunity to present me it (or, maybe, a cable sio2pc :)) please send me, I shall be very grateful.:))) Eugeny Zagudalov Ukraine, Chernovtsy Str. Universitetskaya 4/22 E-mail: evgenz@yahoo.com