1. Introduction
2. Requirements
3. Making an index
4. References
5. Contacts

TapeCat is a small utility to index your original ATOM tapes. Suppose you have a number of ATOM tapes lying around, but you haven't got a clue what's on them. Of course, you're eager to find out, because you want to send your old ATOM stuff to the Acorn Atom Emulator home page. Well, you could lock yourself away with your PC and the tape recorder for a couple of days, OR you could use the TapeCat utility.

2. REQUIREMENTS

3. MAKING AN INDEX

Connect your taperecorder to the "Line In" connector of your sound card. Then start the TapeCat utility. You will be asked to enter a filename. All data will be written to this file. If no extension is given, automatically ".CAT" will be added. Now start the taperecorder and sit back (or do whatever you like). The program now constantly scans data from the tape recorder, and looks for a file control block, either at 300 bps or 1200 bps. If one is encountered, the following information will be shown on screen:

The filename is shown, with the block parameters (start and end address, execution address and block number), followed by the recording speed (either 300 bps or 1200 bps), the time it was encountered, and finally the time relative to the start of the tape. This information is also written to the specified text file. After making an index, it should be a doddle to find the files you want to retrieve from tape: Just wind it to the right position, start up the AtomCom utility, select the right speed, and load it. Don't forget to send it to me!

4. REFERENCES