
                            C64 .TAP Utilities
                           --------------------
                     TAP <-> VOC Converters & Play TAP
                                   v0.03b

                               by Tomaz Kac

  Some time ago H.Sundell, the author of the excellend C-64 emulator CCS64,
started using the .TAP format to simulate REAL C-64 Tape recorder. The file
format was unknown for quite some time... Well, here is the utility that will
let you create the C64 .TAP files with the help of your Sound Card.
  To convert your tapes you will first have to sample them to a file on your
PC. The sample format that is supported by these utilities is Creative Labs's
VOC format. Only 8-bit, MONO is supported at any Sample Rate. It is, however,
recomended that you use as high rates as possible (44100 is the maximum for
most Sound Blasters (SB16, AWE32, ...) , for older ones 22050 is the maximum,
while some other soundcards like GUS can go upto 48000 Hz).

  What is required:  - PC with atleast 486 processor
                     - Soundblaster Pro or better (SB16, AWE32, ...)
                       (if you want to playback .TAP on SoundBlaster)

  There are two utilitis present in this package. First one is 64VOCTAP.EXE and
will convert .VOC files to .TAP format. The second one is 64TAPVOC.EXE which
will do the conversion from .TAP to .VOC or it will PLAY the .TAP on your
Soundblaster.

  Command Line Syntax:

     64VOCTAP FILE.VOC [OUTPUT.TAP]
    ----------
Switches:

   /shift   Will 'SHIFT' the voc file by one pulse. This comes in handy because
            .TAP format stores TWO pulses in one byte and therefore you can
            'miss' the right combination. So if the tape doesn't load in the
            emulator first try to convert it again with this option !!!

   /tresh n This will set the 'Treshold' to n. By default the Treshold is set
            to 127 and should be good for most of the tapes. However all sound
            cards don't produce very clean signal and it can shift up/down
            so you can set the treshold manually here... the valid numbers are
            from 0 to 255, BUT don't set it too much off 127, +- 10 should
            suffice !

  If you don't supply the OUTPUT filename then the INPUT filename will be used,
but the extension will be changed to .TAP .
  The conversion is pretty quick and it needs as much memory as the .VOC file
length (sorry, but I didn't bother with reading of VOC file in 'chunks') - i.e.
if the VOC file is 12MB big then you will need 12MB of free memory !!! Maybe in
next versions this will be fixed...


     64TAPVOC [switches] FILE.TAP [OUTPUT.VOC]
    ----------
Switches:

  /play     Will Play the .TAP file on your Soundblaster. (if you don't supply
            this switch then the .TAP file will be converted to .VOC format!)

  /freq n   Use Frequency n Hz for SB play or conversion to .VOC format. By
            default the 44100 Hz is used when playing the .TAP on Soundblaster
            and 30303 Hz is used when converting to .VOC format. With this
            option you can specify any frequency you like.

  If you are replaying the file through your SoundBlaster then you can stop
the replay at any time by pressing any key.

  So far this was thoroughly tested on my Cyrix P166+ and SB AWE32, but I got
reports of it working on several other configurations ...

  There could be problems if you have the IRQ setting of the SoundBlaster set
to higher than 7 ... or DMA higher than 5.


                             !!! IMPORTANT !!!
                            -------------------
When first trying to play something on the Soundblaster use lower settings and
built up to higher ones or else you might damage the equipment or SoundBlaster.
I cannot be held responsible if anything like that happens...


HISTORY:  0.01 - * Released to some beta-testers only.
          0.02 - * First Public release, fixes some minor bugs.
                 * Frequency higher than 20kHz is handled properly now in both
                   utilities
          0.03 - * Added two switches to 64VOCTAP which should improve the
                   conversion results:
                   /shift   - which 'shifts' the VOC by one pulse  &
                   /tresh n - which sets the 'treshold' value to n [0-255]

  If you would like to port this utility to some other computer or O/S then you
can request the source code... since this is freeware I will be happy to send
it to you ...

  My email is   tomaz.kac@uni-mb.si   ... mail me if you have any problems
with this program or would like to see some things added.

                                                                             TC
