Documentation - Wireless Copy V1.0, Copyright 1998-1999 by Sami Silaste

WHAT DOES IT DO?
Wireless Copy is a utility for transferring Commodore 64 disks from your 64 to your PC. Wireless Copy uses your 
Commodore 64 Datasette to transfer the disks. It reads a whole disk from your 1541 or 1541 II disk drive and saves it in 
compressed format on tape. It then reads the saved disks off the tape on your PC through your sound card and saves 
them in the D64 disk image format, which can be used with many C64 emulators (e.g. CCS64, C64S or PC64 ).

You can use Wireless Copy if you have a working C64 or 128 and 1541 or 1541 II disk drive and a Datasette. No cables 
or connectors are required. Wireless Copy is intended for the transfer of your most treasured disks only as it will take 15 
to 20 minutes per disk for the whole transfer process.

Wireless Copy comes with the full source code in Turbo Pascal 7.0 (should also work with 6.0) and in Delphi 1.0. The 
Commodore 64 source is the same as the binary file.

WHAT DOES IT NOT DO?
Wireless copy only transfers disks from your C64 to your PC. It does not transfer disk images from your PC to your 
C64. Also Wireless Copy does not support any X1541 or similar PC<->1541 cables. Also Wireless Copy does not 
transfer copy-protected disks as it does not transfer the encoded error or copy protection information on the disks. Please 
note that Wireless Copy has not been tested on the North American NTSC Commodores - in theory it should work but 
who knows.

HOW TO USE WIRELESS COPY
Wireless Copy has two parts. The first part you need to run on your C64 to copy your disks on tape. The second part you 
run on your PC and it extracts the disk images saved on the tape.

Wireless Copy comes with 7 files, which are:

64EXP.EXE	-	The C64 part of Wireless Copy
WIRELESS.EXE	-	The PC part of Wireless Copy
WINWIRE.EXE	-	A Windows interface for Wireless Copy
WIRELESS.ICO	-	Icon file for Wireless
WIRELESS.DOC	-	This manual (Word format)
WIRELESS.TXT	-	This manual (Text format)
SOURCE.ZIP	-	Wireless Copy Source Code (both for PC and C64)

Please keep all these files in the same folder (e.g. Program Files\Accessories\Wireless) as this is required for the proper 
functioning of Wireless Copy.

Copying the C64 part from your PC to C64
First you need to transfer the C64 part into your Commodore. This can be easily done by running the enclosed file 
64EXP.EXE on your PC by double-clicking on it. When run, the 64EXP creates a sound file WIRELESS.WAV which 
you can then double-click to play it. Record the output using on a cassette using a tape recorder. Wireless Copy can then 
be loaded on your C64 from that cassette using the C64 Datasette. Alternatively you can just select the Transfer C64 
Part option from the file menu of WinWireless and all the steps detailed above are carried out for you automatically - 
Just make sure that the directory selected in Directories box is the Wireless installation directory.

Recording
Connect the line-in connector of your tape recorder or hi-fi to your sound card's lineout socket (This is where your 
speakers are normally connected). Once the tape recorder is connected, press record and when the tape is rolling, play 
the sound (WAV) file. Wait until the sound file is finished (around 45 seconds), rewind the tape and take it to your C64. 

Please note that you should use a reasonable sound volume when playing the WAV file, that is approximately 70% 
volume at your PC end (i.e. turn the sound card output volume about two thirds of the way up). In most PCs you can 
adjust volume by clicking on the speaker icon in your Windows 95/98/NT system tray, located in the lower right hand 
corner of your screen.

Loading
Now insert the tape in your C64's Datasette, type load and press play on the tape when so instructed. In a few seconds 
time your C64 should say `FOUND WIRELESS' and continue loading after a brief pause. The loading should take about 
45 seconds. When loading has finished, you should get a message saying LOADING READY.

Text on screen whilst loading Wireless Copy on the C64:

LOAD

SEARCHING
FOUND WIRELESS
LOADING
READY.

If instead of LOADING, READY you get ?LOAD  ERROR then you should try one of the following things:

1)  Re-record the WAV file, try different volume values (louder / quieter )
2)  Make sure the tape you are using is blank and is correctly rewound to the beginning of the recording. Play back the 
tape on your hi-fi to ensure the recording has succeeded.
3)  Adjust your Datasette's tape head azimuth angle. There is a small screw in the tape head, which is best visible when 
the play is pressed down. Take careful note of the current position of this screw and then turn the screw clockwise 1/4
of a turn. Now try loading again. If you fail again, keep turning the screw clockwise in 1/4 steps and re-trying loading 
until a whole turn has elapsed. If still no luck, return the screw back to its original position and work your way anti-
clockwise in 1/4 steps until a whole turn.
4)  Clean your Datasettes tape head using a standard cleaning cassette. If you are still out of luck, try obtaining a new 
Datasette as these are both plentiful and cheap or try one of the alternative ways of transferring the Wireless Copy 
to your C64 (see Appendix A).

When you have succeeded in loading the Wireless Copy, save it on disk using the command SAVE "WIRELESS",8,1
This will make using it easier in the future. If you have forgotten, you can load Wireless Copy from disk by typing 
LOAD"WIRELESS",8,1. The directory of any disk can be viewed using the commands LOAD"$",8 and LIST.

Running the C64 part (getting your disks on tape)
If you have wondered why it is necessary to use the Wireless Copy on your C64 and not simply save your disks on tape 
using the SAVE command then here are some reasons: First, you can only save individual files using the SAVE 
command and your disks usually have multiple files. Wireless Copy makes an exact copy of your disk, including all the 
directory information and other data on the disk that is not in any of the files. Secondly, Wireless Copy saves your disks 
in Turbo Tape format, which is several times faster to save and load. Lastly, Wireless Copy uses data compression to 
further reduce the save and load times.

Right, so you have now loaded the Wireless Copy. Run it by typing RUN and press return to exit the title screen. You 
are now instructed to insert the disk you want to copy. Do this and press return. Wireless Copy will now start the disk to 
tape copy process.

During the copying you will see an alternating status line saying 
READING BLOCK - TRACK, SECTOR:  15  1 or
COMPRESSING BLOCK            :  12  7
Where the numbers correspond to the current track and sector. There are 35 tracks on a C64 disk and each track has 
between 21 and 17 sectors. The contents of each block read are shown in the top part of the screen. Also the 
compression algorithm fills the top part with rubbish after each read.  Altogether there are 683 blocks to be read and 
compressed, which will take approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

The data read from the disk is stored in your Commodore 64's memory after compression. When the memory fills up (it 
can store about 60 kilobytes) you are prompted to INSERT A TAPE AND PRESS ENTER. When inserted, press enter 
and you are told to PRESS RECORD & PLAY ON TAPE. When you do this, the screen will go blank and the contents 
of the memory are saved on the tape. Please note that if you already have record & play pressed down, Wireless Copy 
will not ask you to press enter - so you can copy a whole disk without having to supervise the process.

Depending on how full your disk is and how well its data compresses, Wireless Copy saves your disk on tape in either 1, 
2 or 3 parts. Typically a disk with only a couple of small files on it will be saved in one part and completely full disk in 
three parts. PLEASE make a note of the approximate total recording time (when the screen is blank) as you need to 
record this saved information using your PC's sound card and a cassette player.

When the copy process is finished, you are asked if you want to copy a second disk. You can copy any number of disks 
in one session and the PC part of Wireless Copy can extract them all in one go. If you answer N, you are returned to the 
C64 Basic. Please note that Wireless Copy is still in the memory and can be run again by typing RUN.

If the READING BLOCK - TRACK, SECTOR line does not advance to track 35, sector 16 (due to disk errors) then you 
will not have an OK copy of the disk on tape!

Transferring a taped disk to you PC (sampling the tape)
Your PC can read the recording on the cassette through your sound card. Connect your hi-fi or cassette player (not the 
Datasette!) to you PC's sound card input. This is usually marked as `Line In' or by an arrow symbol pointing inwards. 
Do not connect your hi-fi or cassette player to the microphone socket (if one exists) as this is not designed to take input 
from other devices.

Please be aware that a full 1541 disk is approximately 5-6 minutes long when recorded on tape. You can record any 
number of saved disks in one WAV file and these can be then extracted in one go. However, do not split the same 
saved disk in multiple WAV files.

If you are using WinWire, simply type the filename in the `Sound file name' box (e.g. disk1.wav) and click record. 
When the text `recording' appears on the screen, press play on the tape. Press the Stop button in WinWire when the 
recording has finished. If you are running Wireless Copy from DOS, you have to make your recordings using other 
software, as the DOS part of Wireless Copy does not have sound recording capabilities.

If you prefer to use other software to record your WAV files, you need to record your samples using a sampling rate of 
at least 44,100 samples per second. The recording can be either 8 or 16 bits and it can be in stereo or mono. However the 
8 BIT MONO PCM format is the preferred format for reasons of speed of decoding and conservation of disk space. In 
fact Wireless Copy does not care if your recording is not in a WAV format. For as long as it is in 8 BIT MONO PCM 
format Wireless Copy can decipher it - so you can use other formats ( like VOC ).

Check your Volume!
When recording your cassette it is essential that the maximum volume recorded does not exceed 70%. You should 
make a few test recordings before sampling several megabytes as you need to establish a suitable recording volume 
level. A suitable level is more than 50% volume, but less than 70% volume. Use the graphical display of your recording 
software to make an estimate of the loudest and quietest values in your recording. Software, like the GoldWave have 
excellent displays to do monitor the line-in volume. With many sound cards you can also monitor the input volume by 
double-clicking on the speaker icon in the system tray and selecting Options, Properties, Recording. The last resource 
for monitoring the sound input is to play back the recorded sound by using the Sound Recorder (Sndrec32.exe in your 
Windows directory) and by checking that the green `blobs' are about two-thirds of the maximum volume.

Decoding the WAV file and extracting D64 Image files
When you have finished recording the tape with you sound card, you need to use Wireless Copy to extract the saved 
1541 disk and save it in D64 format on your PC.

If you are using WinWire, select the sound file in the `Sound file name' box and click Extract D64s. WinWire will then 
use the DOS part of Wireless Copy to extract the D64 files. The extraction process can be stopped any time by pressing 
Q or ESC. When the extraction has finished, click the Refresh button and you should see the new D64 image(s) in the 
file list box.

If you tick `Get image names form disk names', your D64 files will be named using the original disk name (label) and 
ID of your 1541 disk - otherwise you will be prompted for an image name during the extraction process. If the box `Use 
long filenames' is not ticked, filenames are truncated to 8 characters. Please note that you cannot use the long 
filenames option under Windows NT. Please also note that if the `Get image names from disk names' option is 
selected, any existing D64 files of the same name in the same directory (folder) will be overwritten.

If you are running Wireless Copy from DOS, change the current directory to the directory where WIRELESS.EXE is 
located and type the following command line: WIRELESS soundfile.wav -i -95. Where SOUNDFILE is the name of the 
sample file you have used in recording. You need to type the filename in full, including the extension (e.g. WAV). The -
i option tells Wireless Copy to use your 1541 disk names as the D64 image file names. And -95 enables long file names 
under Windows 95/98 (even in the DOS prompt). No not use the -95 option if you are running Windows NT.

Other Options
You can set a special threshold value to help Wireless Copy to handle samples sampled by less-than-precise sound cards. 
If you are having recurring problems decoding a certain recording, try increasing the threshold value by one at a time 
and trying to decode again. The default threshold value is 0. You can set this parameter from DOS by using the -Tn 
option. For example, if you want to set a threshold value of 1, enter it as WIRELESS soundfile.wav -i -95 -T1 where 
eight follows immediately after T.

You can log more detailed information about the extraction process by typing in filename in the `Log file' box in 
WinWire. The command line option for this is -L:logfile.txt.

Finally, clicking on the `Show Info' shows you the Copyright notice and the Disclaimer in a kind of `demo format'. 
Please maximise your screen when viewing this information by pressing ALT ENTER. Use WIRELESS -info to view 
this information from DOS command line. Also please note that some NT systems refuse to run this part properly

WHAT NEXT?
When you have successfully extracted your D64 images, you can check that they contain what you expect them to 
contain by double-clicking on the D64 files in the WinWire D64 file list box. If they look OK, then dig up your 
favourite C64 emulator and try opening the image files.

Remember that you can load files from a C64 disk by typing LOAD"FILENAME",8,1 and typing RUN when the 
loading is complete should run the loaded program. Please note that if your emulator uses 100% compatible disk 
emulation, loading files can take several minutes - patience!

ERRORS AND OTHER MESSAGES
When the extraction process is finished you should see at the bottom of the screen a message saying `n disk images 
extracted' where n should be a number corresponding to the number of disks you saved on tape on your C64. Note that 
any disks that Wireless Copy failed, but attempted to extract are included in this total.

After the extraction of each individual D64 image, Wireless Copy calculates a 32 bit CRC checksum of the disk image 
and compares that against the checksum calculated when you saved the disk on tape on you C64. If these two checksums 
match it is more than 99.998% probable that your disk has been correctly transferred. A successfully compared 
checksum is shown on the screen as CRC Checksum OK! If you get a CRC checksum error, that means that you have a 
disk that is mostly OK - in fact most files on it should be fine - but some of them might have errors - and there is always 
the change that the transfer error occurred on an unused part of the disk.

In addition to the whole disk checksum, an 8 bit checksum is calculated and compared for each individual tape segment 
- remember that a 1541 disk can be split up to up to three tape segments. If a segment checksum fails then a message 
saying `Decoding error: Failed checksum in segment' is shown and Wireless Copy will skip to the next disk image. If 
this happens, watch out for any partially extracted D64 files (length less than 171KB) - in fact you should delete these as 
they might cause your emulator to lock up if you try to access them.

DISCLAIMER
This software is provided on an 'as is basis' and whilst running it the user accepts full responsibility.  The 
author accepts no responsibility for any damage, either direct or consequential, to the user's equipment, 
person, family or pets. The author accepts no responsibility for the proper working (actual or implied) of 
this software product. The author accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the conduct of any altered or 
tampered copies of Wireless Copy. If in any doubt of the unaltered nature of this product, please peruse the 
attached source code files and compile your own copy! You are not discouraged from using the source 
code to develop your own developments, provided that sufficient credit is given to the original copyright 
holder and that the new development is distinctively different from this Wireless Copy.

COPYRIGHT
This product, Wireless Copy (Including the C64 part and WinWire) and the Manual Files are copyright to Sami Silaste 
1999. The author grants permission for Wireless Copy to be publicly available in its unaltered format, having all the files 
detailed in the `HOW TO USE WIRELESS COPY' section of this manual included, for download on public Internet 
sites only. No commercial gain is to be made by making Wireless Copy available for public downloading or other access 
- this includes any pecuniary gain made by advertising on the above mentioned Internet site, by the distributor or by any 
other organisation or person affiliated or non-affiliated to that person or organisation. The author remains the sole 
copyright holder of any software products where copyrighted source code of Wireless Copy is used unless express 
written permission is given by the author for the use of the source code.

LICENSE
By distributing or using this product (as defined in the COPYRIGHT), you accept the above mentioned COPYRIGHT 
definition and are granted one license free of charge for the usage and distribution of this product. If you, the license 
holder, violate the above mentioned COPYRIGHT this license immediately becomes void and a COMMERCIAL 
LICENSE must be obtained from the COPYRIGHT holder if this product is to be further used or distributed by the 
license holder. Distributing this product is defined to be any such action that makes the product available for further use 
or distribution. In the event of this free license becoming void, distributing is also to be defined as any such action taken 
in the past which makes the current distribution or usage of this product possible.

COMMENTS? SUGGESTIONS?
If you like this program, please send a postcard to: Sami Silaste, Clifford House, 152 Redland Road, Redland,  
BRISTOL, BS6 6YD, UNITED KINGDOM or email your electronic card / greeting to <samis@aethos.co.uk> or 
<sami@semaphore.demon.co.uk>. 


APPENDIX A - Alternative Ways of Transferring the C64 part of Wireless Copy to Your C64

As there is always the possibility that your Datasette and/or C64 refuses to load the C64 part of Wireless Copy here are 
some alternative ways to transfer the C64 part to your Commodore.

1)  If you suspect that the file WIRELESS.WAV that was created after running the 64EXP.EXE does not play properly 
on your PC, you can try running the 64EXP.EXE with the -tap option (64EXP -tap). This will create a file 
WIRELESS.TAP in the current directory. TAP files are tape images that can be used to load C64 tapes on some 
emulators (e.g. CCS64 2.0). There are several utilities that let you convert a TAP file to a sound file that can be 
played through your sound card and recorded on tape. It is possible that you can have more luck trying to load from a 
tape recorded using one of these utilities. One good one is the `C64 TAP Utilities' by Tomaz Kac <tomaz.kac@uni-
mb.si>.
 
2)  If you have access to a C64 modem or have an RS232 adapter then you can upload the WIRELESS program that is 
included in the SOURCE.ZIP (This is the actual C64 executable) into your UNIX (or other) account and then 
download it to your C64. Alternative you can cross-connect the RS232 send and receive lines (or your phone line 
connectors) of your RS232 adapter and your PC serial port and transfer the WIRELESS program using Xmodem, 
Ymodem, Zmodem or Kermit in a suitable terminal program.
 
3)  The more hardware-oriented option is to build the X1541 (or similar) cable and transfer WIRELESS program (see 2) 
to your floppy disk. This might be an option if your PC's parallel port does not work with the X1541 cable, but you 
can temporarily use some other (older) PC. 
 
4)  The extremely desperate option is to UUENCODE the WIRELESS program (see 2), type in the uuencoded file on 
the C64 and use a suitable uudecoding software on the C64 to extract the file (remember typing all those listings 
from magazines!). Alternatively you can use a disk editor or monitor program on your C64 emulator to view the 
WIRELESS program and type it in at another disk editor/monitor at your C64.

