Sorry about starting a new thread. Google Groups doesn't work properly
today and wouldn't let me post a follow-up.

tendim wrote:
> Over the years I've noticed that a lot of people use tapes for
> games.  I've also noticed that this is primarly in the PAL scene.  In
> NTSC world, or at least in Canada, I've only used a tape drive once or
> twice, and they were incredibly slow!

Agreed. Back in the mid 80s, when I had my C64, we all used disk
drives around where I lived (near G�teborg, Sweden). When I got into
the C64 stuff again in the late 90s I was as surprised as you that so
many people used tapes.

The reason probably was that disk drives were so expensive in Europe
(or rather, that people didn't earn as much as in North America). When
my family bought our C64 in 1984, the computer + 1541 cost upwards of
SEK 10,000 - equal to a month's income before tax for many people back
then. So buying such a setup back then was equal to buying a really
high-performance PC with all the extras today. We could only afford it
by selling our VIC-20 and me and my brother using all our money from
our paper rounds, and then my dad still had to add a couple of
thousand (SEK) or so.

In contrast, a C64 + datassette would only set you back around SEK
5,500 IIRC. Naturally, after buying the computer and disk drive, we
couldn't afford a tape drive, so I never used tape myself.

> Were there ways to make the tape drive load faster?  It is serial
> access only, correct?  Was the medium simply easier/cheaper to produce?

There were turboloaders that sped up tape access significantly.

Niklas Ramsberg
aka
< .
    (:)  Bacon
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