C64 Datasette – you remember it. The Datasette embodies Commodore cheapskatery from start to finish: it was a cheapo alternative to a proper disk drive, it’s got a crudely thrown-together connector with wires hanging out and it’s even got a skinflint mono drive head apparatus. All expenses spared, so that Jack could keep the costs down!
dsc00308So it turns out they last pretty well. And in this age of 1541 emulators, MMC64 interfaces and the like, it’s sad to see a Datasette sitting unused and unloved. So I decided to lavish about four quid on mine and turn it into a block-rocking pimp star supreme with:
* an internal speaker
* internal 9v battery power
* an external in (for when I eventually get the recording head to work)
* a line/headphone output
* a switch/knob for power and drive motor speed control (though this doesn’t really work yet)
* an unfeasible amount of mystery line noise, which I’m going to pretend is intentional and adds ‘character’.
via syphus» Blog Archive » Ghettosette – C64 Datasette/audioplayer conversion.
Comments
4 responses to “Syphus’s Ghettosette”
Hi Akira! That never occurred to me but I guess it could :) All three of my C64s are broken at the minute so I won’t be able to test it until I can replace a few PLAs, etc, but I’ll experiment. Still haven’t got the record head to work properly, but I’m gonna ask some tape-hacker friends about that. It’s possible it just needs a pre-amp for the input. Anyway, I like the way you think :D
If it has an input, can it load T64 images from a host PC or something like a MP3 player or Minidisc?
Cool project! Reminded me of this: http://www.8bittoday.com/articles/19/obscure-software-tape-composer/
I actually didn’t notice that this was Syphus until I checked his blog independently afterwards.
Time for the OVERKILL
http://www.luigidifraia.com/c64/dc2n/index.html
Anyways if you want an audio out just to load tape images, you just need a cable, and do without lugging the datasette around.