Storing CPC tape software on a audio CD

Introduction

This document will describe how you can put CPC tape software onto a audio CD and then load the software into a real CPC computer.

There are two steps in this method:

1. Creation of the audio CD containing the CPC software,
2. Loading the software into the CPC from the audio CD.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using a audio CD to store CPC cassette software.

The advantages of this method:

1. If the CD is not damaged, then the quality of the audio signal will always be good, and loading is guaranteed.
2. You can store about 10 games on a CD (the actual number is dependant on the duration of the audio required to hold the game)

The disadvantages of this method:

1. The program will take the same time to load from the audio CD as it would from the original cassette.
2. The Amstrad can't control the CD player, therefore, you must watch the game as it loads. If the game requests that the tape player must be stopped, then you must stop the cd player. If the program requires you to rewind to a specific program block, then you must rewind the playback in the cd player to the correct point. This will be a problem for multi-load games.

Step 1: Creation of the audio CD containing CPC software

To create the audio CD:

• A blank writeable audio CD (CD-R Audio) or a blank writeable CD (CD-R)
• A CD-Writer connected to a computer
• CD Writing software
• CDT tape-images
• The "playtzx" utility

(CD-R Audio CDs are recommended if you want to use a normal CD player to replay the sound because some CD player's can't read data CD-R's)

The setup I used was:

• Maxell CD-R 80XL-S data CDs
• Philips CDRW2400 and a PC
• Nero 5.5 CD creation software
• tape images downloaded from ADATE

The method:

1. Convert the tape-image into a sound file that your CD creation software will accept.

   [Instructions to convert a tape-image into a audio file]

   Notes:

   • I created one sample file per tape image.
   • I used 44Khz (44010Hz) 16-bit mono audio file as this gave the best quality sound.
   • I created one audio CD track for each sample. Therefore there was one tape-image per audio CD track.
2. Create the audio CD using your software (follow the instructions given in the manual)

Loading the software into the CPC from the audio CD

Setup required:

1. a CPC with a cassette connector
2. a cassette lead to connect the CPC to the CD player
3. a CD player

The setup I used was:

1. a CPC6128 computer
2. a cassette lead (5-pin DIN to 2 x 3.5mm phono plug)
3. Philips CDRW2400 and a PC
4. Windows CD player

Follow this method:

1. Insert the audio CD containing the CPC software into the CD player,
2. Connect the CPC to the CD player using the cassette lead.

   The data-in plug should be connected to the "phones" or "line-out" of the CD player.

3. Type in the instructions to load cassette software on the CPC. [Instructions to load cassette software on a real CPC]
4. Adjust the volume output of the CD player to half.
5. Select the track on the audio CD,
6. Play the CD track,
7. Wait for the CPC to load the program

I connected the CPC to the "phones" socket on the front of the Philips CD Rewriter and adjusted the volume to about half. The audio tracks were generated from samples created by playtzx, generated at 44Khz and converted to the WAV sample format. The CPC loaded every game without fault.