cassette players, mp3 players, .wav and stuff

[hipporhinostricow]

I'm very, VERY new to the Oric scene; I found one in perfect condition and completely intact packaging in the attic, and started fiddling with it. however, i can't find any info on how to connect an mp3 player to the oric itself, just that it can be done. Please help! Thanks in advance.

[Dbug]

Hei, and welcome.

Is it an Oric 1 or Oric Atmos ? Do you have all the leads, and the user manual ?

If yes, you should look in the appendix, there are diagrams showing the various pins of the connectors on the back. You can also see that here:
http://www.48katmos.freeuk.com/ports.htm

One word of caution: I would advise you to put some sticky tape or cardboard on the expansion bus. The reason is that when you power the oric you have to insert/remove the PSU connector, and it is just on the side of the bus port. If you miss the hole and plug it on the bus instead, you fry the oric immediately: Preventive action can help

This being said, the m3p thing is dependent of a lot of factors.

Basically you can load data from everything that can replay audio in not too bad quality. So if you have a good mp3 player, and if the sample is not compressed too badly, this would work. Can also work with CD players, or directly with output from a pc sound card.

To convert a .TAP (emulator tape) file to something you can load on the real oric, you can use Tap2Wav or Tap2Cd (can find them here http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/index_english.html) to convert them to WAVE files. You can replay these wave files with anything that replay audio, you can burn them to a cd, compress (not too heavily) to mp3, etc...

The secret is in not distorting the signal too much: You don't want to have automatic "fade in/out", you don't want to use "normalization" or "compression", and you surely don't want to use heavy compression.

On the other side, when you replay, you have to make sure that the volume is correct. Too low the oric will not detect the signal, to high it will be saturated, somewhere in between it will manage to load without error.

Good luck

[Symoon]

To convert a .TAP (emulator tape) file to something you can load on the real oric, you can use Tap2Wav or Tap2Cd (can find them here http://oric.ifrance.com/oric/index_english.html) to convert them to WAVE files.

Beware:
- the latest versions of the tools will be at http://oric.free.fr/ (PC Tools section). the ifrance website hasn't been updated for years now
- when using Tap2wav, use the -11 switch to produce a WAV file at 11kHz. By defalut, tap2wav produces 8kHz wavfiles which can be loaded by Euphoric, but this rate is sometimes too low to provide a correct loading on a real Oric.

[carlsson]

If you use 11 kHz mono files, perhaps uncompressed WAV is good enough? Memory storage is cheap today, if you use a 2 GB MP3 player or better.

[Symoon]

If you use 11 kHz mono files, perhaps uncompressed WAV is good enough? Memory storage is cheap today, if you use a 2 GB MP3 player or better.

For what it's worth, this is my opinion too.
Not using mp3 will save time (no mp3 compression) and will remove the risk of having a mp3 conversion that altered the signal.

BTW, I forgot the usual trick: if you Oric remains "Loading.." when the WAV file is finished, add a small silence at the end of the WAV file. MP3 players tend to cut the very beginning and very end of files they are playing, which is a problem to end the loading of an Oric program. Let it cut some silence

[hipporhinostricow]

Sorry, i left a lot of info out on the previous post...

Its a 48k ORIC-1

PCB number 3

Ive got both the power supply and the linkage cable to the TV

However, no cassette player cable.

On that page showing the pins, there are 4 pins im confused with; Tape in. Tape out, and 2 Sound pins. To make it work, which pins does the sound need to be plugged into?

Also, ive found on ebay a likely looking cassette player...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-TCM-939-Data ... 1|294%3A50

Does anyone know if it would work?

thanks[/quote]

[Symoon]

On that page showing the pins, there are 4 pins im confused with; Tape in. Tape out, and 2 Sound pins. To make it work, which pins does the sound need to be plugged into?

Only use tape in and tape out. They mean it's the sound in and sound out for tape programs.
The sound pins are the Oric sound output. If you're tired of the Oric internal speaker, plus these pins to you sound system and enjoy

Also, ive found on ebay a likely looking cassette player...
Does anyone know if it would work?

Any standard tape player should work.
I highly recommand players where you can control the stereo though, as some programs are sometimes recorded on the left or right channel of the tape only.

[hipporhinostricow]

i guess that means that the second wire for a mono sound input would go to the ground, as with the sound output to the cassette? so should there be 2 wires leading to the ground port?, or am i missing something here?