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JamHamster

@jamhamster.bsky.social
1.1K followers 38 following 1.8K posts

Nerd, tinkerer, lunatic.

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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 16h
I think people respect the hard work that goes into making anything. With AI, you'll get a game but it'll be a homogenised reduction of ideas that have been done to death and have to prompt it into something passable (minus errors!) Yours would be unique, a labour of love and likely hard won. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I use Claude at work to whip up scripts but using AI in general is like an evil Djinn. It'll grant your wish but not in the way you want most of the time.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Jimmyyyyy!! Apaches mentally scarred my Sis for life!! 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Guaranteed to have saved a bunch of lives though. I still won't step on the tracks on a level crossing even though I know it's 100% safe. Hooray for useful PTSD (AKA Spicy Nostalgia) 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Hehe, that reminds me - Did an old skool rave remix of that quite a few years ago.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Same! 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Thought I'd give Google Gemini a go on a subject I know quite well... It very confidently made a bunch of stuff up, none of it was even slightly correct.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The Boots C-15 was always my weapon of choice and I found a bunch on eBay a couple of years ago. It seemed fitting to put hooky games in one again. 🙂 My scope is an Owon sds1102 but I don't know enough about scopes to recommend them. It does all I need but I'm no expert.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
jamhamster.wordpress.com/2026/10/04/c... And blogged. 🙂
jamhamster.wordpress.com
Creating tapes for the C64 with a CR-669 portable cassette recorder.
I got a cheap portable cassette player with SD/USB and MP3 capability and thought I’d see if it could be used to convert .TAP images back to original cassette tapes so I could load them on a …
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Sometimes it's good to go the pretty way round. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I tidied up the images, and plopped some text on. I'll write up a guide and use these as examples. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I've been running the numbers using a .TAP of Sanxion. I had to go from volume setting 254, all the way down to 10! 😧 The C64 seems to like it really quiet but Sanxion loads. The recording is supposed to be a sine wave but I tried square and it's way better which I wasn't expecting.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
First recording results are in. I'm using tap2audio to convert to .WAV, Sine, with no inversion at full volume and checking the result with HeadAlign. The double lines mean it's too loud. This overdrives the deck waveform into an M shape. The Schmitt triggers on the falling edge twice. 🤔
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I have a bodged lead for monitoring tape output on the scope and some clean source files. WDWII is an example of one that's no bueno. The controls on the tape deck l are hilariously counterintuitive so I'll skim the manual first, then shove some MP3s up it to see what's what. (Boots C15 FTW) 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I seem to be well placed to take some of the mystery out of the subject so I'll see if I can come up with a guide to make the process as reliable as possible. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Getting C64 TAP image files from t'internet, and converting and recording them on to real cassette so they can load from their original format. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Side Quest 2 (Electric Boogaloo) I have a cheapie MP3/SD card cassette recorder (CR-669) and I'm going to have a play with converting TAPs over to real tape. In theory, it shouldn't be that hard but I've said that before... 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Experimenting with multi threaded scan runs. It'll query the tap for variance and copy the tap to folders 0-9 (0 great, 9, terrible). it also generates a PNG representation of the file in the output folders. It can scan 3,000 odd files in about 15 seconds. It is pleasingly rapid. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thanks!! I've had mixed results on the c64 with castool and found tap2audio gives the best wav conversion. It's ideal for the lesser known machines. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
All run through the fixer, and the vice batch test is done. For the very worst batch, it tidied as many as it killed but I can just replace the worst ones with another variant. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
East Fife four, Forfar five.
static.klipy.com
Filthy Frank: Confused Screaming
ALT: Filthy Frank: Confused Screaming
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
1,883 tested. There's way less blue than I was expecting. 😊
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I'm doing the groundwork to make sure it's as reliable as possible first. Still not sure how the selling thing would work, a kit without a battery would make the most sense, easier shipping. 🤔
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It'll be easy to skim through them by eye and sort the wheat from the chaff. Any fix process is like whack a mole so I'm expecting some to have been broken.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I ran the Ultimate TAP Archive through the query tool and it picked out some less than great ones so I ran the Jitter Fix. I'm batch running a few thousand through VICE to make sure it didn't break anything. It'll run, load the TAP and capture a screenshot after 20 seconds. Shouldn't take long... 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I've made a tool (JitterBug) that's turning into a one stop shop for all your TAP needs. It's currently running a sort into folders 0-to 10 based on timing jitter. It'll also use three repair methods and convert to wav and MP3 in one fell swoop with a choice of waveforms (sine, square, and Squine).😊
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
(also, I used lube, impregnate and mating in a post and didn't giggle once - That's a worry!)
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Silicon lube is ideal but you need to be careful where you put it. disassemble the tape and with a lightly impregnated cotton bud, wipe the mating surfaces. It's that or a new shell.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I think I'm onto something - Quite a few TAP files have timing errors. The timing errors in some taps mean this works on an emulator but are more difficult to convert to actual tape as there's much less room for error and the tape will add to the issues. I might have a fix for it... 🤔
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I need a nicer menu but the core options are all there. It accidentally turned into a decent TAP management tool. I have some widdling about to do but it seems to get some lovely results. I sense a blog post and github release in my future.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Before and after thumbnails are showing some decent cleanup being done to the worst images I could find . 😊
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It's a scan report of every TAP I could get my hands on (Minus the Speccy games!). It'll be worth running a repair sweep on the remainder to see what I'm left with, and find out if the tools do any actual good.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Whoops, it's not as bad as it looks - I accidentally scooped up a bunch of ZX Spectrum Taps but this was a happy accident as these were correctly classified as not being C64 images and will be spat out into their own folder. 🙂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
3,000 files in and the scores on the doors are worse than I thought.... 😯
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The code scores each tap file with a confidence rating based on checksum and jitter detected in the TAP itself. I've done some spot checks and this is matching the results on real hardware. It chucks in into buckets 0-10 0 is perfect, 10 is unusable. Would anyone find this tool useful?
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm currently processing every .TAP file I have (31,000 odd) and have a script that classifies them into folders numbered 0-10 based on fidelity - Some are especially bad (Yeah, I'm looking at you Cuthbert in Space) I want to have a management tool that I can share on GitHub once it's all working.
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I am the main liability I'm insuring myself against but you're absolutely correct! 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Tree removal day! It's dead and won't fall for a while but it's the right thing to do. It's the first time I've needed to pay someone to do something since I moved in as I've taught myself how to do everything else. ...and my tree climbing days are a few decades behind me. 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Batch MP3 conversion & thumbnail integration sorted. I also took a quick look through the set and weeded out and replaced the duff 'uns. Spot checks with Vice help to validate stuff (Doesn't take long at 363,516% CPU) 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I'm going to try and get it all together into a single management script that'll run through a file set, fix, encode to MP3 and integrate .TAP structure thumbnails for them. I would also like to add confidence sorting into different buckets to properly sort the wheat from the chaff. 🤔
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Lol, yes! It was sacrificed for the cause. 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've been down a rabbit hole of C64 TAP images of late. It's very hard to tell what's what. I've got a PS script that will pick through TAP files and pop out a visual representation in PNG format. It's dead easy to spot a wrongun at the merest glance now...
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
That's the right call, never skimp on chairs. I have a Zico Mesh chair, it stood my bony butt for over a decade and it still has excellent lumbar support to stop me becoming a human prawn. ☺️
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Well that was disappointingly straightforward. Shaped the base with a belt sander and carved a perineal dip (don't want to paralyze my leg again!). Stuffed it with the contents of an old cushion, test sitting as I went, then sealed it up as if staples were going out of style. 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
😂
static.klipy.com
Robert Downey Jr. Says 'Maaaybee'
ALT: Robert Downey Jr. Says 'Maaaybee'
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I need a workshop chair. I have all the bits except for a seat so I'll see what I can do with a scaffold board. I'll also need to learn upholstery which I'm rather looking forward to. 😁
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Yeah, I'm up by the Grenadier. I checked and as part of the covenants of the place, I'm not allowed to excavate. (It has been an in joke with me and my partner that I'm not allowed tunnels or bunkers all la Colin Furze) 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
And it does it again, nice one sunshine! ☺️
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Perhaps... 😂
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JamHamster @jamhamster.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Lol, since then, I've vowed to never get my booty on the floor or make anyone's day. 😂
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