Tapuino, the $20 C64 Tape Emulator

[penrods]

Hi

Thanks for all the replies.

I tried the Hello World program and same result. The LCD and I2C arrived today; "Hello World!"

Uploaded the Tapuino sketch - displayed okay!

So, either duff LCD/I2C / duff soldering on my part or both

Tested tapuino and it's working great - what a fantastic product so thanks to sweetlilmre for the concept and to spcbm for providing an assembled version - highly recommended!

Once I've mounted in a busted datasette I'll post some pics!

BTW I live on an island too and it's much smaller than Africa lol - Anglesey

Thanks again

Cheers
Lee

[sweetlilmre]

Thanks for the kind words and awesome that it works! Nice island!

-(e)

[Olav_nordmann]

My Tapuino which I assembled some time ago!

The holes are a bit rough in the edges as I didn't have a drill to make them. I used a Swiss-army pocket-knife instead, and to my surprise it worked quite a bit better than what I expected.

Assembly went without a hitch. Things, including power lines, soldered easily, and documentation was sufficient allthough it is mostly for the mounting and not the soldering itself. I'm pleased with the result, and there were no major problems. The biggest issue I had during the project was how to label the switch, as this is only explained by analyzing the schematics.

It works, but I have yet to get a microSD card for it. I won't get access to my C64 before a good week from now anyways so it's no haste.

[caiusfabricius]

Hi all,
I finally assembled my Tapuino with latest V1.71 R2 PCB (minus the LED and switch for the buzzer, I used a CD4052 instead of 74HC4052) but I can't make it working, all I get is a "Init Failed! V: 2.30" message when I power it up.MicroSD (8GB HC class) is properly formatted with FAT32 allocation table
Arduino NANO is a chinese clone with CH341 serial chip instead of FTDI one.I also reflashed its bootloader using an Arduino Mega2560 but without luck.

P.S.
I used IDE 1.6.4 and 1.6.5 to compile the sketch, both gives me a warning about few memory available.

[sweetlilmre]

Init failed indicates an issue with the SD Card initialization. Please carefully check the wiring to the SD module

-(e)

[caiusfabricius]

Init failed indicates an issue with the SD Card initialization. Please carefully check the wiring to the SD module

-(e)

Damned chinese dupont wires!All working now, thanks!

[caiusfabricius]

Here is my realization, a bit anonymous but fullly working



All my issues sorted soldering wires directly to headers without using any connector (as I said dupont wires are not really reliable)
I noticed that on some .TAP, though the game has successfully loaded, the counter is stuck at 99% and goes on.
Besides, also using a 100 Ohm resistor @R2 the buzzer volume is barely audible especially when you close the case.

[sweetlilmre]

That looks excellent! The 99% is a known thing, the tap files are often encoded with extra silence etc on the end.

-(e)

[caiusfabricius]

That looks excellent! The 99% is a known thing, the tap files are often encoded with extra silence etc on the end.

-(e)

Another issue I had was that the I2C board was soldered to the LCD module in a way that they touch each other causing malfunctioning of the LCD itself
No, I think we must concentrate on multigames TAP, I have some ideas but lack of skills to put them into practice

P.S.
It Tapuino compatible with all version of .TAP format?It would be useful to start a compatibility list (but I think it's hard due multiple versions of each game)

P.P.S.
I forgot..I have 7 PCBs of Tapuino V1.71 R2, I have no use of them so feel free to ask if you need one.

[spcbm]

Besides, also using a 100 Ohm resistor @R2 the buzzer volume is barely audible especially when you close the case.

It depends on the buzzer, I tested with some of them until find a decent one.
Nice you got it working, so PCBs 1.71 R2 are now tested