SVI-CAS Image Player Initial Announcement

Very clean design. Congrats. I like it!

@RvS

Hi,

No, it is not based on arduino software wise, but I do make use of the Mega2560 Pro arduino board and the standard 2.8" arduino TFT touch screen module as they are cheaper than getting a custom board surface mount loaded. The following link will allow downloading of the 50 page PDF users manual for SVI-CAS and it should answer all your questions as well as give a good overview of all the units features:

http://users.tpg.com.au/romsey/SVI/SVI-CAS.pdf

@CASDuino

Hi,

I don't own or have have access to a Dragon computer - they are very rare here in Australia, but I believe that as it stands such images should work. SVI-CAS has been tested with every TRS-80 CoCo image I could find (nearly 700), which includes ones which were heavily optimized to the point where trailing packet bytes were missing in some files and it handled them fine. Even CoCO CAS images where the header starts out normal and then runs on for longer than a standard header and is then followed by non-standard image data - it is here that SVI-CAS will switch to "Raw Mode" to reproduce what it sees, as this caters for images where tape protection schemes have been persevered in the image.

I've been told that the Dragon computer uses exactly the same tape "packet" structure for data blocks and the same header composition, so it should be fine, I have used SVI-CAS to look at the contents of Dragon images and it has read and listed out whatever programs were contained within them without issue. Of course it does all boil down to it being used on a real machine and I am waiting on the word from a fellow in Denmark who has bought a unit from me to report back when he receives his unit.

Also I don't support the AMSTRAD machines - again because I can't get access to one, if you try to play a CDT image it will actually play - but the frequency will be wrong because I have left out 4MHz Z80 support for now. It is not hard for me to add in new machines..... in fact it is easy to add in the Amstrad, BBC micro, Electron, etc, it's just a matter of my being able to test that the image interrogation prior to actual playback is all good. I wanted the ability to look inside an image and display what files it held as many of the SVI-318/328 images are large compilations of multiple programs.... in fact it was these very machines that prompted me to create this unit, as I was sick of converting files to WAVs and trying to play them manually into my machines.

@Romsey

When testing on computers I didn't have access too I'd record the playback on PC and load it in an emulator. It's not a perfect way of doing things but it does give you an idea if things work. As for the Amstrad CDT files, as long as you have the TZX IDs programmed in it doesn't matter about the 4Mhz clock speed. TZXDuino doesn't differentiate between the differences in t-states, it operates with the Spectrum in mind, and it loads CDTs perfectly, even the Musical Loaders.

One of the OLED displays or a 1602 LCD?