3 ms·
I'm curious how the timing worked - what happened if you were a few seconds early to record? Was the first part of the broadcast filled with noops?
by sdwr 2y ago
I'm curious how the timing worked - what happened if you were a few seconds early to record? Was the first part of the broadcast filled with noops?
- RetroTechie 2y agoZX Spectrum tapes use a lead-in tone which the ROM code locks onto. Random noise (and data! from a previous block) before that is ignored. Zooming out, the format is: Lead-in (~4..5s usually), followed by a short header with program name & type of data that follows. A short pause. A shorter lead-in (~2s), followed by the data/program itself. Most software uses several of such blocks. Eg. a short BASIC loader, followed by a loading screen, followed by a # of KB's machine code. As far as audio tape storage goes, the ZX Spectrum system was fairly reliable & user-friendly. That's ignoring headerless blocks, speedloaders, and the many copy-protection schemes...