Ykhjuy

Back when I had a ZX Spectrum 48K, I had a friend that had a 128K and we would swap games for the weekend from time to time.

We did try and make duplicates of the tapes (yes, I know, but we were ten and had no concept of piracy). I had two of those external 5-1/4 inch-drive sized tape units (this kind of thing). I connected them up and tried to make a copy but they would bum out soon after starting. From memory they would suffer from "flutter", I think it is called, or was it wow (or both).

Strangely I seem to remember being able to make a copy of something I had written in BASIC, saved to tape, duplicated, and then had no problems loading. It may be that it was very short or my bad memory.

Out of interest, if one had access to a good hi-fi unit (I did not) could one actually make a duplicate, or did they have other protecting in place? I note there where some very sophisticated tape units available at the time (or soon after) which I understand could give CD a run for its money (e.g. the Nakamichi Dragon or the Pioneer CT-F1250).

Just for the record, I do not condone any such conduct but, for experimental and interest reasons, I wanted to ask.

It's now well publicized how people used to record programs for their machines, from their radio, which were transmitted by radio-stations .

So maybe you could have played the program on an audio-speaker, and then used the microphone on a cassette-recorder to copy the tape.
That may have bypassed the flutter problem .

What about the volume level when you tried copying, it's an issue for people today, when playing these old tapes to their modern-hardware for emulators etc, or is it vice versa.

Maybe games from shops were stored in a finer-detail-format( or machine-code ? ) to prevent copying, don't know .

No, you won't need any 'HiFi' like recorders. After all, these were the very same devices you also used to record your own programs and/or data. While copying from recorder to recorder does always carry a loss in quality, this is of no big influence on a first or second degree copy (*1).

The most important factor is volume. It's much the same as when recording and re-reading data. If the level during recording is too high (*2), reading may not work. Just about every computer manual back than included a paragraph or more to explain level setting and how to find the right level during playback.

This is even more important when using just the recorder as level and sensitivity on both sides are an unknown quantity (*3). The output of the source recorder now has to be adjusted that the cassette is played back at a level which, in conjunction with the input sensitivity of the other recorder, places it somewhere in the middle of the road.

So all needed is spending some time adjusting both recorders.

Now, having said this, there are of course ways to improve the signal, and people did spend money to buy such, to make sure copying went well (*4), but for most cases it was waste of money.

P.S.: The drive shown has nothing to do with any PC standard, like 5.25 inch drive bays or alike. It's just an average cassette recorder, like they were ubiquitous back then.

*1 - As in numbers of consecutive copies.

*2 - Or too low, but that's rarely the reason.

*3 - When recording from the computer, the level is (usually) set well within the defined working range for tape recorders. Only when reading back is adjustment needed. Usually, this is done by turning a litle dial next to the ear/line-out plugs.

*4 - Of course, only for archiving purpose, never to duplicate cassette-based software for resale :))