BBCTAPE 0.91 beta
-----------------

BBCTAPE is provided with no warranty whatsoever.  It's a beta-quality
product (some will say alpha), which does its job well enough to
please me.  I don't know if I will release any further versions.

This program can be used to copy files from BBC or Electron tapes to
your PC (or workstation, if you have a C++ compiler that supports
exceptions and templates).  All you need is a means to acquire a sampled
waveform of the tape (22-44kHz, mono, unsigned 8-bit), for example a
soundcard in your PC.

Note the block info output to stdout is not correctly aligned.  The
__CATALOG__ output looks much nicer.

The provided executable is a Win32 console program - NOT a DOS program!
This is mainly due to the need for long file names.  As the __CATALOG__
format makes filename translation possible, DOS support might be added later.

Type BBCTAPE for a short help text.  Only '-' is allowed as a switch
character.  Switches are case sensitive.

Note that the C++ source makes use of exceptions and templates, as I use
VC++ 4.0.  If there are enough request, I will remove these so that
older compilers can cope.  I have not tried compiling this on any kind
of UNIX, so let me know if you get it to work.

This program is released into the public domain. 


I hope BBCTAPE will prove useful to someone.

Regards,
Robert Schmidt
<rsc@nvg.org>


Things to do
------------

* Improve algorithm, so that lower sample rates can be used.
* Improve cout output for each block, so that columns are correctly aligned.
* Add DOS (8+3 filename) support.
* Add Acorn Atom tape support (need sample/info on format).
* Make filename "Win95'ifying" optional.
* Make 0/1 threshold adjustable from command line.
* Add greater control when a bad bit is detected.  Maybe let the user
  choose 0 or 1...?

Low priority:

* Add live decoding using direct input from a sound card.
* Add support for other systems - e.g. Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, ...


History
-------

(21.04.2001)
        Released to the public domain.

0.91 (21.02.96)
        Modified the __CATALOG__ output to enclose file
        names in quotes.
        Cleaned up the code (removed inactive code, added some comments.)
        Made a more interesting README.

0.9 (20.02.96)
        First beta release.
