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How to Create an AstroBASIC Editable BASIC Listing. By Adam Trionfo. February 23, 2019. This document describes how to create a BASIC listing that can be edited in a plain text editor, and then made into a 300-baud WAV file. It requires some Bally tape archiving tools, a real astrocade and a RAM expansion for the astrocade. The WAV file can then be loaded into Bally BASIC or "AstroBASIC" (by converting it using the 300-baud utility conversion program in the "AstroBASIC" manual). The article can also be downloaded in its original Word .doc format: |
| 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 Paul Thacker 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: KCS -M -L5 -P50 Refer to the KCS documentation for further details. PRG2TXT By Ronaldo Goulart 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 By Ronaldo Goulart 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 Update: May 6, 2012 Paul Thacker updated prg2txt and txt2prg to version 1.2. Two features he always wanted have been added: support in txt2prg for bytes in curly braces, and making prg2txt only optionally look for VIPERSoft BASIC keywords. |
| AstroWAV and Ballybin | "AstroWAV" and "BallyBin" By Bob Colbert 2002-2007 These two programs allow AstroBASIC and 2000-Baud Bally Arcade/Astrocade tape software to be digitally archived from tape to WAV files for use with your favorite computer or media player. With the help of these two programs, new BASIC software can also be more easily written. Most archives contain extensive documentation. |
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AstroWAV and BallyBin 1.4 (Source Code) |
"AstroWAV" and "BallyBin" (Source Code). By Bob Colbert / 2002-2007. Released by Paul Thacker / 2024 (Source Code Release). These two programs allow AstroBASIC and 2000-Baud Bally Arcade/Astrocade tape software to be digitally archived from tape to WAV files for use with your favorite computer or media player. With the help of these two programs, new BASIC software can also be more easily written. On August 28, 2024, Paul Thacker wrote to the Astrocade discussion group a thread called Compilable ballybin and astrowav 1.4. Here is brief excerpt: "Long ago, Bob Colbert shared the ballybin and astrowav source code, but it wouldn't compile on modern compilers. I probably could have figured it out with sufficient effort, but I never put much effort into it. I figured I would see if ChatGPT could help with setting up a project and fixing the errors and warnings, and this is exactly the sort of boilerplate work it excels at. So, here is ballybin and astrowav 1.4.1. I haven't tried to add any functionality, but this has everything set up if anyone does want to try to enhance it. There is also a ballybin 2.0, but while some of the new features are cool, I never got as much success in actually processing recordings with that version." This archive contain extensive documentation by Paul Thacker that explains how to use the source code: |
| Astrowav and Ballybin Archive Docs | "Astrowav" and "Ballybin" Archive Docs By Adam Trionfo "AstroWAV" and "BallyBin" both contain instruction on how to use the programs. These very brief instructions on how to archive 2000-Baud programs may get the user up and running faster. |
| 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! |
| Casio Utilities Casio Utilities Documentation |
"Casio Utilities" for 300-Baud Tape Archiving By Marcus von Cube This is a very useful tool for cleaning up 300-Baud recordings. So, how do you use this program for Astrocade recordings, you may ask? Two utilities are useful for Astrocade recordings--wav2wav, and wav2raw. These should work with any recordings using the Kansas City Standard. wav2wav makes a direct bit-for-bit copy of the original, just cleaned up into square waves so it should load and compress more easily. This is great for keeping exact timing intact. wav2raw is slightly more processed, recovering the data bytes. From this, you can get a .prg/.bin file which could be converted to the actual source code by Ronaldo's tools. Here is a direct link to the Casio Tools website. Check there for any possible updates: Too much to understand? For more information one how to use these utilities, read Paul Thacker's short tutorial on how to archive 300-baud tapes
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| Cleaning a RAW Binary (Non-BASIC) WAV file with BallyBin and AstroWAV | "Cleaning a RAW Binary (Non-BASIC) WAV file with BallyBin and AstroWAV" By Adam Trionfo. July 10, 2018. These are general instructions on how to clean an Astrocade's RAW 2000-baud binary recording created with the Blue Ram Utility using BallyBin and AstroWAV 2. I used the tape version of the Blue Ram Utility 3 by Perkins Engineering. I loaded the utility from a WAV file into my Blue Ram 16K unit. In this example, I converted the 2KB Machine Language Manager (MLM) cartridge by Bit Fiddlers to a WAV file that can be loaded with "AstroBASIC." |
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TapeTool (Link to www.toptensoftware.com) |
"TapeTool." (300-Baud, KCS Format, Digital Archiving Tool." By Brad, the founder of Topten Software. Added to BallyAlley.com on January 18, 2025. Description from the tool's website: "TapeTool (aka tapetool2) is a command line utility for converting and repairing Microbee, TRS-80 and Sorcerer audio tape recordings. TapeTool2 might also be useful for other retro tape recordings - especially those that are similar to the Kansas City standard but hasn't been tested in these cases. "Supported Platforms: TapeTool2 is written is C# and runs on Windows natively (assuming you have .NET installed) and will work on OS X and Linux if Mono is installed." Paul Thacker has used TapeTool to digitally archive Bally BASIC, 300-BAUD programs written for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade. Paul says, "After playing around with the options a bit, I got much better results for two tapes that were giving me trouble. I also like that audio filter support is built directly into the program. Both highpass and bandpass filters work well, bandpass maybe a bit better. I also found I sometimes needed to turn the noise threshold way down to make it sensitive to small signals." Paul made a thread about using this tool on the Astrocade discussion group on August 21, 2021 called "New 300 baud tool," here: "New 300 baud tool" Thread on the Astrocade Discussion Group. The first post in the thread has been archived as a pdf here: Tape_Tool_(2021)(Paul_Thacker).pdf Since websites come and go without any notice, the "TapeTool" utility and its documentation have been saved locally: TapeTool (Local Copy, Archived January 18, 2025). TapeTool Documentation (Local Copy, Archived January 18, 2025). You may try to use TapeTool if other 300-Baud tape utilities, such as KCS, PRG2TXT and TXT2PRG, don't work for you. |
