Tapuino, the $20 C64 Tape Emulator

sweetlilmre

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Jan 25, 2013
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KwaZulu / Natal
Hi,

The Tapuino is a cheap (~ $20 or less) hardware level Datasette emulator for the Commodore C64 and Vic 20, with C16 / Plus 4 compatibility possible.
With a few components and some simple soldering (or even a breadboard), you can make a completely functional replacement for your Datasette opening up access to the vast library of .tap files available on various preservation sites.

Loading and saving of data is supported: enjoy a game of Elite and save your progress!
With additional hardware the Tapuino turns into an archiving system allowing you to make backups of those original tapes that have been lying in the loft for decades :)

I've been working on this for a bit and its reached functional status, please have a look if you are interested.
I plan to continue developing the firmware and hardware for a while and will post updates here and on my blog.


tapuino_bb-r2.jpg

Thanks for your interest!

http://sweetlilmre.blogspot.com/2014/07/tapuino-20-c64-tape-emulator.html


Build instructions (Rev2) are now available at:

http://sweetlilmre.blogspot.com/2015/03/building-tapuino-r2.html


Code and design files are on Github at:

https://github.com/sweetlilmre/tapuino

Please log issues at the Github page! :)


stephenfalken
has made an awesome video of the Tapuino in action!



-(e)
 
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Thanks :) I am hoping to get this documented sufficiently so that basically anyone can build one.
Hopefully someone will jump on the bandwagon and give it a go so I can get some feedback.
 
excellent work , well done :)

wish i was clever enough to do the same
 
excellent work , well done :)

wish i was clever enough to do the same

Wow... ! coming from you, that is one helluva compliment! :)
I'm really a total amateur on the HW side, software is my thing but luckily the HW on this project was pretty simple to put together.

Thanlks
-(e)
 
Nice job! (y)

Heather

Hi,

Thanks for all the positive feedback. I did the first test today with the Tapuino in total stand-alone mode, i.e. powered from the C64 and it works well :)
Now I have to try and transplant this to a veroboard... which will be interesting to say the least :)

-(e)
 
That looks like a great project! I am in a similar situation having found a free C64 but with no way to get software into it. It seemed a bit wrong to spend a whole lot of money on getting data into a free machine.

My first 'project' (only took 2 hours) was to get an Arduino Pro Micro working as a USB keyboard. The pro micro is $8 on Aliexpress and is I think faster than the Uno. When I get some time I'll give the Tapuino a try on it.

There's a guy on eBay selling connectors for $1.60 each. Shipping is about $10 to me, but I could order a larger quantity and send them on. I was planning on ordering some user port connectors too, so let me know if you want any of either.
 
SD2IEC can also be assembled on veroboard if you are looking for a cheap and easy DIY solution.
 
Would be kind of cool to combine the two and have a single device that could support both floppies and tapes...
 
That looks like a great project! I am in a similar situation having found a free C64 but with no way to get software into it. It seemed a bit wrong to spend a whole lot of money on getting data into a free machine.

My first 'project' (only took 2 hours) was to get an Arduino Pro Micro working as a USB keyboard. The pro micro is $8 on Aliexpress and is I think faster than the Uno. When I get some time I'll give the Tapuino a try on it.

There's a guy on eBay selling connectors for $1.60 each. Shipping is about $10 to me, but I could order a larger quantity and send them on. I was planning on ordering some user port connectors too, so let me know if you want any of either.

Hey!

The pro micro should be fine, you'll just have to adjust for the pins.
Can you give me the ebay link for those adapters? I'd like to check shipping to me. I'm definitely keen to get some either from ebay or you.

Thanks
-(e)
 
Awesome project! (y) Looking forward to see how it progresses.
 
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SD2IEC can also be assembled on veroboard if you are looking for a cheap and easy DIY solution.

That sounds like a fun project, do you have any links? I've got another idea for a disk drive emulator that could be interesting but that is a way away :)

Here are the connectors, shipping might be OK if you buy a whole load of them. He also sells 10 user port connectors for US$14.99 http://www.ebay.com/itm/131140836103

That bloke doesn't ship to RSA so its a no go, however I did find this http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Card-Edge-Connector-LW-S6A2G-6Px2-Solder-Slot-Socket/140386456279 which is even cheaper if the shipping works out (should be cheaper for you too).

Awesome project! (y) Looking forward to see how it progresses.

Thanks! Busy laying out the veroboard version now.
IMG_20140712_195504.jpg
 
Well I finally got it onto the veroboard:

IMG_20140713_200257.jpg

Which was exciting, or rather frustrating! Managed to let the magic smoke out of an opto... never trust flux paste, it is the devil. :)
-(e)
 
I'm really liking the look of this, great work (y).

Hmmm do you think this could be adapted to work on a Pet ? I was looking at a petdisk but can't seem to get a reply from the chap doing it (bitfixer) so this could be an alternative.

Good luck with this mate.
 
I'm really liking the look of this, great work (y).

Hmmm do you think this could be adapted to work on a Pet ? I was looking at a petdisk but can't seem to get a reply from the chap doing it (bitfixer) so this could be an alternative.

Good luck with this mate.

Hi,

I'm not sure. I believe that the pet signalling might be different and I don't have one to test with, but if you are OK with C then it shouldn't be too hard to modify?
Let me know if you want to build this, I'll have detailed instruction up for the veroboard build in a bit.
-(e)
 
Actually, after further reading it seems that this might be pet compatible...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
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