More Sorcerer musings. Cassette interface issue, or a MESSprogramming issue?

On 17/06/2011 03:03, Terry Stewart wrote: Sorecerers are usually pretty good at reading tapes, so /something/ is definitely wrong. To see if its a problem with the sample rate, you could try recording something from the Sorcerer and see what happens when you play it back (at the same sample rate obviously!). From the monitor, you can just save a chunk of memory. Saving part of the ROM and loading it back is useful -- it always contains what amounts to pseudo-random data (rather than a whole lot of 0x00, or a whole of 0xFF, which you might have in RAM if you've not been running a program). A command to save 16 tape blocks would be SA TEST E000 EFFF Another thing you can try is connecting the EAR socket to the MIC socket, set it to SAVE something and watch the LED, which should go out while the Sorcerer is sending data. I've usually found that doesn't quite give the best results unless you use an attenuator, but at least it demonstrates that most of the hardware is correctly set up (or not!). The tech manual has a section on testing and if necessary adjusting the cassette interface circuitry, pages 31-33. There's also a write/read test program on page 31, which is short enough to enter as hex data. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York