Posted By
MIK
on 2003-07-01
 |  Re: reading tapes
I have near on 300 originals on tape and 95% will load with out any problems, but some I have to load side 2 insted to get that 95% to load. Your never get one single 1531 to load all games, as you can guess not everyone had the same head alignment when they were recorded.
Best thing to do is pick one of you 1531's that is good and you don't mind messing about with. Above the second O on the word Commodore is a small screw hole and you need a small Philips watch type screw driver to adjust the heads. To line the screw up your need to press PLAY down so it lines up with the hole.
The best way to set the heads is with a game that has a Turbo. You cans see whats going on, maybe one of your games does have a Turbo because normally these are the ones that fail to load..
Load the game and watch the Turbo and take note where it stops or if it looks like its doing something it should'nt be doing eg.(same colour flashing all the time). Rewind tape and remove it. Adjust the screw head one quarter anti-clockwise (up) and load again. Watch the Turbo, if it looks worse than before then you have gone the wrong way so move the screw clockwise half a turn. Also as you adjust try both sides of the tape just incase. Just remember how much you have moved the screw so if in dought you can go back to where you started.
(Note: they won't be out that much when you start). If you go to far with the heads it may not find the FOUND "GAME". Or it might find the FOUND "GAME", but the Turbo will not even show. It can also find the FOUND"GAME", but also lockup right here and not load any more. So take the screw back.
It's not that hard to mess about with, but if you do get worryed then pop in a game that uses NOVALOAD because in general this is the correct setting that most tapes use.
The only tape I lost was Terra Nova, it has a mean 1/2 wav Turbo just like Pinpoint. 1/2 wav's can also be a pain to load. I tryed may different tricks but in the end it was down to the age of the tape, poor tape quality and very bad anti-copying type of Turbo that was used (we thankyou Anco).
Once you get a good setting that loads one of your bad tapes, you may find it will still load all your others games anyway.
Another trick which you may not have access too is I have a small board so I can use 2 C64 tape decks at the same time on a C64, one plays and loads while the other records whats being played. It makes an almost perfect backup (better than using a home tape deck), and because the tape that was out of alignment has now been recorded onto a new tape that is aligned it can work  I guess your lost on what I'm saying
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