Trying to decode 20-30 year old Intellivision ECS cassettes

[mr_z]

I've spent quite a bit of time the last week trying to decode some ancient and rotting ECS BASIC programs that were recorded on cassettes back in the 80s. Cassette tapes being what they are, they haven't held up well over the years

Comments

[mr_z]

Thanks, I need it. :-)

I've asked the person who owns the tapes to try making a stereo dump, in case the "dropouts" are due to warpage that shifts the tape relative to the head. Maybe I can find on left channel what went missing from the right, and vice versa.


I tried someone's parameterizable KCS decoder I found online, setting the parameters to match my tape. It gave me the computer equivalent of a Nelson Muntz "Ha ha!" telling me these tapes suck, and then exited. Actually, it said:Iteration failed to converge to sensible values, restoring:
lo average = 0.000
hi average = 32373.546
...which, when accompanied by no actual output file tells me it doesn't like my input. :-)