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Bleepload Transfer 2.2   [2023]

Bleepload Transfer 2.2 Released by :
Fungus

Release Date :
25 September 2023

Type :
C64 Tool

User rating:awaiting 8 votes (7 left)   See votestatistics

Credits :
Code .... Fungus of Nostalgia
Test .... Comos of Angels, Nostalgia, Onslaught
  S!R of Nostalgia

Download :

Look for downloads on external sites:
 Pokefinder.org


Summary
Submitted by Fungus on 26 September 2023
Changelog:

v2.2 Bugfix release;
Fixed manual mode to use selected drive number
Fixed various bugs in disk access routines
Added valid device checking
Added drive not ready check before beginning transfer
Added space to restart on tape load error
Made manual mode border color consistent with automatic mode
Fixed typos and omissions in readme.txt
Changed device number display to decimal
Removed status check in directory display to prevent hang
Fixed compiler warnings with latest tass64

v2.1 Bugfix release;
Fixed manual mode file decryption bug

;-------------------------------

This is a proof of concept for a generic bleepload transfer utility utilizing an REU. I took it as a challenge as it was said that it is "impossible" to make an automatic transfer for this particular tape loader/protection that runs on a c64. Yeah right ;)

Thirteen years later I decided to finish this tool, and here it is for your enjoyment. Source code (> 4000 lines) and all my notes included.

It loads and decrypts the files and saves them to disk, it also saves the jmp tables to a separate sequential file so you can examine the calls to any picture displayer or the main entry point. It also saves the CBM files and headers.

The tool chain is tass64, exomizer and c1541.

I tried to keep all the routines generic and utilitarian so that they can be easily adapted to other transfers with minimal work. The code is well commented, so it should be easy enough to figure it out (or not). I did not get around to splitting it up into smaller chunks, sorry. It is not optimized much but it works, since the code is very complex I didn't feel the need to spend the time optimizing.

This should be the most comprehensive and complete documentation of Bleepload.

The tool as of now (22/09/2023), is able to transfer every tape I have access to (75 in total). Most of them can be transferred with automatic mode. I also included a manual mode for tapes which are too complex to heuristically scan or are multi-level games. I also discovered and documented a third type of bleepload which was used on the game Baal by Psyclapse.

Please see "bleepload manual mode.txt" for the format of the manual control file. It's structure is simple and you can create it in your favorite monitor in a few minutes. An example one for side 2 of Baal is included for completeness.

Many thanks to all those who provided testing materials and bug reports.

Thanks to Comos, S!R, and Ziggy72 for testing.

Luigi DiFraia must be credited for the initial work on documenting the Bleepload binary format.

I'm not done yet, more to come.

- Fungus
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About this site:
CSDb (Commodore 64 Scene Database) is a website which goal is to gather as much information and material about the scene around the commodore 64 computer - the worlds most popular home computer throughout time. Here you can find almost anything which was ever made for the commodore 64, and more is being added every day. As this website is scene related, you can mostly find demos, music and graphics made by the people who made the scene (the sceners), but you can also find a lot of the old classic games here. Try out the search box in the top right corner, or check out the CSDb main page for the latest additions.
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