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| The DC2N DC2N stands for Digital C2N and it's basically intended to be a compact replacement for the tape unit used with Commodore home computers (C64, C16, VIC 20) back in the 80's and 90's, the datasette. DC2N also wants to be a standalone system that lets people dump (ie. make a digital backup of) their own old tapes without any PC OS file system restriction as it has been happening until now (usually MS-DOS and a FAT partition are required by popular tape/disk dump tools). DC2N also incorporates a tape duplicator that lets people save back TAP files to tapes using a datasette. Luigi has chosen to provide such a replacement by using SD cards as storage medium. This implies many advantages: compactness, low-power consumption, and an almost endless time of operation, just to name a few. January 2008 Update At the moment Luigi has developed a bunch of fully working devices, helped by a few friends who also betatested the software and the hardware. The year 2007 has been an important gym to test the features and improve the firmware based on the feedback received by the betatesters. The year 2008 wants to be a chance to integrate and customize the firmware in a partly open-source project. The idea is to allow a certain level of customization of the firmware by DC2N users. Actually everybody with a DC2N can upgrade the firmware without any specialized hardware. With the free toolchain distributed by ATMEL it will be possible to also change, rebuild the firmware and upload it to the DC2N. Along with that, Luigi may soon start the design a surfacemount version of DC2N with additional capabilities (USB connectivity, graphic display), using a more powerful microprocessor.  DC2N out of the box DC2N in brief When used as a datasette replacement, connected to the tape port of a Commodore computer, the DC2N can play TAP files that are stored on the SD card. In this mode of operation, the DC2N draws the power it requires directly from the Commodore computer it's connected to. DC2N supports the FAT-16 file system and for playback purposes it reads files in TAP format. A TAP file to play is selected by means of the LCD and pushbuttons on the DC2N board. Once a valid file has been selected, it can be played by DC2N by pressing the PLAY pushbutton. Any tape loader is fully supported, including multiloaded tape programs. DC2N also features a FFWD function and the LCD shows a counter that comes handy when it is needed to seek any program on a single TAP file. For recording purposes a different file format is used to save data to the SD card. This format has been defined by Luigi to allow an accurate representation of the data that is being saved. Luigi has also written multiplatform PC tools that allow easy conversion between the DC2N format and the TAP one.  DC2N playing a TAP file When used as a dumping system, an external PSU is required to power DC2N if you want to use it as a standalone device (ie. you do not strictly need any Commodore computer to dump tapes). In this mode of operation the DC2N format is used to store the tape contents on the SD card while it is being played by a datasette connected to the DC2N.  DC2N dumping a tape  Luigi is the creator of the DC2N. Further information is available on the official project web pages: DC2N web page DC2N diary Commodore 64 Tape Info Central |