Tag Archives: Tapecart

The 32-Bit Tapecart

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A few weeks ago, I built the through-hole version of the Tapecart based on an ATtiny44. The original and probably the most wide spread variant of the Tapecart is much smaller though. It is built from surface mount components and it is based on the much harder to get 32-bit AT SAM D09 controller.

I wanted some of those Tapecarts in my collection so I had “a few” boards made, ordered the components including a matching case and waited for everything to arrive. Soldering the SMD version is not hard, the smallest components have a 0805 footprint. Continue reading →

TapecartFlasher Nano

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In my previous post I introduced the Tapecart, a thumb drive for the Commodore 64, and built one of those. The only major issue with these great devices is the 1.5 hours it takes for the C64 to transfer the 2 MB of data to them.

Fortunately, Detlef Gerhardt came up with the idea of hooking up the Tapecart to an Arduino in order to transfer the data using a modern PC. It turns out, this speeds up the transfer considerably and it also eliminates the need for copying TCRT images using a SD2IEC or similar device. An early version of Detlef’s TapecartFlasher software is available on Github.

Tapecart and the Arduino. Ignore all the other components for now.

The original setup for the TapecartFlasher is as simple as it gets: simply hook up 5V and GND from the Arduino, then connect the 4 remaining lines of the cassette port interface to D2-D5. I tried this on a breadboard first and it worked out of the box! The most complicated part here was the lack of a proper connector, so I just soldered leads to the Tapecart module. Continue reading →

The Tapecart – A Thumb Drive for the C64

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The Tapecart is a relatively new piece of hardware that was devised for the Commodore 64 by Unseen and enthusi  and introduced in late 2016. The general idea is quite compelling: The small module features 2 MB of serial flash memory and plugs into the cassette port of the Commodore. By just entering LOAD or the “Shift+Run/Stop” shortcut, a small bootstrap program is run that will then very quickly load up to 64 KB from the Tapecart into the C64 for execution. No cable and no external power supply is required and important other ports remain unused. This is probably as close to a “thumb drive” for the old hardware as it gets.

Both the software and the hardware of the Tapecart are available under an open source license. The hardware is very cost optimized and can be built for only a few € or $. Continue reading →