Special thanks to Bob Colbert, without whom Bally Arcade tape software would still not be available for use. Bob wrote two programs: Ballybin and Astrowav that allow Bally Arcade tape software to be digitally archived from tape to WAV files, which can be stored on a PC or even on an audio CD. With the help of these two programs, new BASIC software can also be written.
Important Notes about Astrowav and Ballybin by Paul Thacker:
Astrowav and Ballybin 2.0 are beta versions that have more features
than previous versions but are less successful at processing recordings than v1.4. I've got two
versions of Ballybin, labeled 2 and 2b (not sure how official this labeling is). Version 2b is the
later version, updated to better handle multi-load programs like the Joplin tape. However, it
introduced a bug that frequently causes the program to hang. I prefer 2.
| 300 BAUD Tools | 300 BAUD Tools This .zip file contains 3 public domain tools for dealing with Bally Basic / ViperSoft Basic programs: KCS: KCS allows the user to create binary dumps from wave recordings, and to convert such dumps back to wave. It is a DOS application, programmed in a custom Forth dialect, DX-Forth, but it's author kindly provided me with a version adapted for a Windows Forth interpreter, so both a DOS and a Windows version are available. The Windows executable is much bigger because of the additional runtimes embedded in the executable. For converting .prg binary dumps back to wave using KCS, a known-working, though not optimal set of command line switches is " -M -L5 -P50". Refer to KCS documentation for further details. prg2txt: prg2txt is a Windows utility for converting binary dumps of Bally Basic / ViperSoft Basic into Unicode text files. By default, it produces an output similar to the regular original listings, and through an optional command line switch, it generates the output file using an alternative syntax, intended to allow the listing to be edited through a regular plain text editor. Such listings can be converted back to binary using txt2prg. txt2prg: txt2prg generates binary files from text listings, which can after be converted to wave for loading into an original Astrocade. In case you are going to edit your own listings or the ones generated using prg2txt, be sure to use the special required syntax. For more information on this, refer to txt2prg.txt | |
| Ballybin and Astrowav 1.4 | Ballybin and Astrowav 1.4 - By Bob Colbert These two Windows programs are used to archive Astrocade tapes. The source code is included. | 101K |
| Ballybin and Astrowav 2.0 Beta | Ballybin and Astrowav 2.0 Beta (Feb 27, 2004) - By Bob Colbert These two Windows programs are used to archive Astrocade tapes. | 312K |
| Ballybin and Astrowav 2.0 Beta | Ballybin and Astrowav 2.0 Beta (Dec 31, 2005) - By Bob Colbert These two Windows programs are used to archive Astrocade tapes. Contains three required DLLs as well as extensive documentation by Bob Colbert. | 713K |
| Ballybin and Astrowav 2.0 Source Code | Ballybin and Astrowav 2.0 Source Code, By Bob Colbert The author of Astrowav and Ballybin, Bob Colbert, has made the source code available to the Astrocade community. This code needs to be sorted through. We're not even sure exactly which binary this compiles to. Can you compile this and help us out? | 10.3MB |
| Ballybin and Astrowav Archival Docs | Ballybin and Astrowav Archival Docs - By Adam Trionfo Very brief instructions on how to archive Astrocade programs. | 2K |
| Bin2BML | Bin2BML - By Lance Squire Bin2BML converts .bin files to .BML files to load on an Astrocade with a RAM expansion. An example called Sample.wav is included. Using this program the user will finally get to see software run on actual HARDWARE! Read the documentation here. | 6K |
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1) wBallyBin 2) wBallyBin (V2) |
Ballybin for Windows - By Bob Colbert This is the Windows version of Ballybin. The executable is called wBallyBin. It displays program information, but this version has the same sort of reliability problems as the command line version. In May of 2009, Paul Thacker wrote: "I have a slightly newer version of Ballybin for Windows. I'm not sure when Bob Colbert will have a bigger update to the program, but we might as well offer the best version available." This slightly updated version is called "wBallyBin (V2)." |
