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Jun 1, 2010
Category: All news
Posted by: FUJI
- corrected new FSK decoding subroutines; effectiveness is almost as good as it was in version 0.94, but there are still some minor problems - sometimes the script enters endless loop, it is also a bit too sensitive to changes in frequencies of FSK signals
- changed the appearance of status/progress line
- fixed the command "info", detailed informations were slightly improved
- addedd checksum verification for Turbo 2600 tapes
- addedd additional type of checksum for FSK encoded tapes, custom loaders use it sometimes instead of default OS-based checksum; it is chosen automatically when needed
- added support for more Czechoslovakian turbo formats: Super Turbo (csst), Turbo Tape (cstt) and B-Tape (csbtape); there was very little testing done, because I have no access to real tapes recorded in these formats
- dropped commands "split" and "merge" - HEX files are good enough for any manipulations
- a number of other changes/fixes/tunning in the code
Apr 30, 2010
Category: All news
Posted by: FUJI
- 0.95 will follow soon, I must finish several things before that
- subroutines handling tapes in standard format were completely rewritten. It was needed for support of the additional kind of tape protection - data blocks built up from fragments of different baud rates. The ability to recover heavily broken tapes is a bit worse now (unfortunatelly), so please pay a bit more attention to sampling quality. Older version(s), which work better in really hard cases, will remain available for download.
- option "--autoadjust" is no longer needed for FSK encoded tapes
- option "--nofsk" (was undocumented) has been transformed into "--allfsk". Normally a8cas-util.pl stores only significant FSK signals in output file (cas, hex or audio). If You want all "junk" to be stored also, for debugging or recovery purposes, You must specify "--allfsk".
- the new command "squarify" was added. It can be used to convet original FSK ecoded signal into square wave, in which zeros and ones are represented by signal levels instead of different frequencies. It works like the old shell script, which started it all (available for download too). It differs from the effect caused by "--squarify", because the output is unaffected by any additional processing. You can use both files (created by "squarify" command and with "--squarify" switch) to precisely adjust IRG lenghths and baud rates to values matching original tape.
- renamed the name of turbo format czech2000 to cs2000 (it was developed in former CzechoSlovakia)
- Removed last addition to specification of "pwms" block - it seeems that it won't be needed at all
- updated examples to match changes in HEX format
Apr 10, 2010
Category: All news
Posted by: FUJI
- let's name the new release: version 0.94 ;)
- a new prerequisite: you need the additional perl module, Audio::Ecasound, it can be installed with the help of CPAN or downloaded and installed manually from the following location: http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/B/BO/BOWMANBS/
- conversion to audio: addedd ability to produce audio files containing both FSK and PWM encoded parts in one step (for tape images holding loaders in standard format and main programs in turbo format)
Because of that feature the script from now will run only on unix-like systems (anyway - I doubt anyone would use it on Windows) - added possibility to specify start and stop time for processing audio files (options --starttime and --endtime)
- Turbo Rom (original format) is now fully supported. Remember to sample Your tapes properly.
- Added support for "Unknown1" turbo format (name: unk).
- Added support for Czech version of Turbo 2000 format (name: czech2000)
- Changed the type of highpass filter (associated with --highpass option) to different one which works better
- improvements in checksum calculations
- improvements in raw FSK signals handling
- FUJI blocks between parts of the recordings can be automatically added (option --autofuji); it is probably a bit buggy and based only on gaps between data blocks
- added option "--squarify" for FSK encoded tapes - it can be used to produce audio files, in which "mark" and "space" tones are represented by low and high levels of signal instead of different frequencies; this is mostly for debugging purposes
- Turbo 2000 (K.S.O) tape images can be converted to binary files (.xex)
- binary files (.xex, .com) can be converted to Blizzard Turbo or Turbo 2000 format
- Some more internal changes, tweaks and tunning.
- Small change in "pwms" block definition
- The layout of the web page has changed
- New examples added
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