*****   
      
   Enhancer Software package for PowerPC & 68k Applications, utilities,   
   datatypes and classes for the AmigaOS   
      
   The press release is available here   
      
   a-eon.biz/PDF/News_Release_EnhancerSoftware.pdf   
      
   As part of our ongoing commitment to develop quality software content for   
   both PowerPC and 68K AmigaOS systems A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to   
   announce the upcoming release of the Enhancer Software package.  Enhancer   
   Software is a collection of applications, utilities, datatypes, and classes   
   that will enhance the AmigaOS experience on your PowerPC or 68k Amiga.   
      
   A powerful mix of productivity and utility software which includes:-   
      
   * MultiViewer   
   * MultiEdit   
   * ClipViewer   
   * Workbench CANDI   
   * InstallerNG   
   * SysInspector   
   * TuneNet   
   * X-Dock   
   * Datatypes   
   * Classes   
   * SmartFileSystem2   
   * Ringhio Notification Server   
      
   ...and many more.   
      
   The Enhancer Software package will be available from AMIStore and   
   participating Amiga dealers.   
      
   For more information please visit:  enhancer.amiga.org (coming soon)   
      
      
      
   *************************************   
              MASTERING TAPES   
      Part 1: General considerations   
                 By Pixel   
   *************************************   
      
   hugbox.org/pixel/   
      
   Most people who experienced the excitement of slapping a brand new game   
   into the datasette want that feeling again.  There's always something new   
   coming out for our beloved Commodore computers but not enough tape releases   
   by far to put the biological clock on hold.  For a reason:  trying to make   
   a tape release is like opening a can of worms.  For me it was a good source   
   of several panic attacks, light sleep, and getting pushed to the edge of   
   substance abuse.  Just kidding.  This article shall guide you around the   
   pitfalls of making your own physical release.  Don't worry.  That'll still   
   remain to be a metric cartload of work.   
      
   SAVING REGULAR FILES   
      
   This is what you probably only want to do to fire off a turbo loader.  Even   
   if your release is a tiny 3K game for the unexpanded VIC-20 it would take   
   relatively long to load without.  The advantage is that your product might   
   actually outlive you when treated right.  The CBM tape protocol was   
   designed to cope with cassettes of such a low quality that one might wonder   
   how they even managed to put music on them.  CBM tape files start with a   
   very long leader, intended to keep users from recording on the thicker,   
   non-magnetic tape that is used to fix both ends to the wheels as the   
   thinner, magnetic tape would rip quickly.  If you record such files rewind   
   your tape fully to save loading time.  The KERNAL only wants a little bit   
   of the leader before the real data begins.  Lots of time saved right from   
   the start.   
      
   TAPE TYPES   
      
   Be careful though with thin C90/C120 tapes cut to length for C20 cases.   
   Small bumps, caused by the place where the tape got fixed, might spoil the   
   fun by corrupting the header then.  In this case better do the opposite and   
   start with a long, 15 seconds or so, pause.   
      
   You want to ask for the thicker types anyway.  They should be type 1 ferric   
   C60, or even better, C46, which are hard to come by.  C90/C120 tapes are   
   determined to go belly up, like turning into vitamin-free salad.  You   
   should prepare them (indeed you should do this with all your blanks) by   
   doing a fast-forward and rewind to make sure they're sitting tightly and   
   evenly on the wheels.  In my experience half of C90/C120 type tapes quit   
   before you can even bag them.  Better power test those before passing them   
   on.   
      
   Expensive Chrome or Metal types don't come with advantages for data   
   recording and the Metal ones might even be bad for datasette heads.   
      
   TURBOTAPING   
      
   Tape quality improved greatly in the 1980's.  Sony invented the Walkman,   
   sold it like fresh rolls and, at once, there was a huge market for   
   high-quality durable tapes.  That made turbo loaders possible which knocked   
   out the 1541 disk drive in matters of speed.  Unlike the CBM tape protocol   
   turbo loaders use a much higher bit rate, use less pulses to encode a   
   single bit and they don't write data blocks twice.  (Yes, the 70s were   
   really, really hard times.) With modern 21st century tapes you can turbo   
   tape 500 bytes per second without having to worry about it really.   
   However, dialing it down a notch is good for the longevity of your baby and   
   for owners of arthritic datasettes as well.   
      
   MAKING TAPES WITH THE DATASETTE   
      
   On the first glance one might think that this is the very best idea of them   
   all to make your tapes.  Original hardware should be the best choice,   
   shouldn't it?  Ermh...no.  First of all this way to go about it requires   
   extra software and if existing tools like Turbo Tape are not to your liking   
   you'll probably end up liking to write them yourself even less.  Even if   
   you are a machine language expert chances are that getting the timings   
   right makes you dream away about more pleasant things.  You could nail it   
   down to the microsecond but in the end you're bound to splitting up your   
   data into blocks due to lack of working memory and restarting the motor   
   forces you to write gaps that keep you from doing seriously cool stuff,   
   like writing TAP files in one go that need it.  Or playing audio samples   
   from tape in real-time.  Generating a TAP file on the other hand is   
   super-easy and one "just" has to write a loader.   
      
   RECORDING WITH DATASETTE CONNECTED TO A PC   
      
   To work around the limitations of recording with original hardware there   
   once was Cassadapt which allowed to connect PCs to datasettes via sound   
   cards but it's not manufactured anymore.  Still, using this kind of setup   
   has some drawbacks that might sneak up on you and bite you in the back when   
   you least expect it:  it's hard to come by ways to make sure the alignment   
   of the datasette's read/write head is correct.  Back in the days, when   
   games on tape were mass-produced, they didn't use arrays of datasettes but   
   regular audio tape duplication plants, effectively making those the   
   reference for datasette head alignment.  Accordingly, if you make your   
   tapes with correctly aligned tape decks you're not to blame if someone   
   else's datasette got hearing problems.   
      
   MAKING TAPES WITH AUDIO EQUIPMENT   
      
   The datasette is suited to deal with rectangular waves.  The problem with   
   that is that there are no rectangular waves in this universe.  They break   
   up into a bunch of sine waves as soon as you try to establish them.  This   
   mix of sine waves distorts the signal beyond your control.  You really want   
   to transform those beloved rectangular waves into single sine waves with no   
   overtones.  As you're sitting in front of your personal supercomputer on   
   which you just developed that nice little game that would have sold several   
   truckloads of copies thirty years ago, you can just generate them in the   
   first place, connect your machine to a tape deck and hit record - with   
   amazing results due to unsurpassed accuracy.   
      
   That's where Audiotap (for Windows) comes in.  It converts TAP files into   
   WAV files of sines.  You should be all set with this tool:  it also works   
   the other way around for data archaeological purposes.   
      
   SELF-MADE MASTER GENERATORS   
      
   If you can't use Audiotap because you take issues in having Windows around   
   you can write such a tool yourself with just a couple of lines of script   
   code using the sin() function.  But make sure the resulting samples only   
   produce half the volume possible to avoid distortions on their way out to   
   the tape deck.  To get absolutely perfect results this very simple strategy   
   does the job:  calculate the waves at the CPU's clock frequency and sample   
   them down in the process.   
      
   ACTUALLY RECORDING   
      
   With your master WAV file ready, set the output of your computer to full   
   volume and also adjust your tape deck's input so that it sticks to about ¾   
   of the green area - again to avoid distortion of the signal.  Last but not   
   least any sort of Dolby as well as MPX filters have to be switched off.   
   Finally, the bass/treble settings should be turned to average.   
      
   As a rule of thumb this works great.  But to make sure, record the tapes   
   back to your computer and examin   
      
   --- MBSE BBS v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux-i386)   
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