Commodore 1530 tape speed calibration

0:00 Intro
1:25 Part 1#3 "Speed is what we need..."
3:47 Part 2#3 "Measuring tape speed..."
10:03 Part 3#3 "You can count on your C64"

Basically this is just a quick video of a very simple project... that got out of control when I started to make a video about it. The video shows the various possible methods to measure (and therefore calibrate) the speed of your Commodore 1530/1531 datasette. However not all methods are as practical as the one shown in the end. Which uses the simple piece of software that the video is really about.

The regular Commodore tape loader can handle quite a large deviation in tape speed, the actual problem of tape speed is with the tapes that use a non-standard loader, a.k.a. fastloaders. As these loaders are operating near the edge of what the device (datasette and tape itself) can do and what the computer itself can handle (clever loading routines).

Calibration of tape speed makes only sense if you can do it with a good quality calibration tape and a well serviced datasette. Since these are old machines, proper maintenance (like cleaning and belts) is very important in order to achieve reliable results.

The program is available for download on my website.
For more info visit my website: https://janderogee.com