C64 Tape loading help

[vintagegamecrazy]

I have a C64 NTSC and a Bounty Bob Strikes Back cassette that is european, I load it and get a US gold title page and at the bottom it says blocks left to load and when It counts down it just goes to a blank screen and freezes. Am I doing something wrong? I don't have much experience with these things so any advice is helpful. Someone give me tape loading 101 for dummies.

[Mayhem]

Sounds like it's at least working okay in terms of trying to load. The loading screen comes up and counts down how many blocks left to load, the game should start shortly after the count reaches 000.

You may need to give the tape heads a good clean, and then try to align them properly. Most of the reason why tapes never loaded correctly. You'll need a program such as this (http://www.ntrautanen.fi/computers/commodore/images/c64/azimuth.jpg), it does turn up on eBay every so often.

Actually I think I might have a spare one myself... will have to search my trades box and check!

In general though trying to load many PAL games on an NTSC C64 will cause issues because took advantage of the extra scanlines that the PAL display allows. However as BBSB was American to begin with, this shouldn't be a problem in this case.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Let me know, I may need that. It just goes to a blank screen, won't a pal game just be scrambled?

[Mayhem]

Nah... I doubt much PAL optimisation was done on BBSB, your tape should work fine if it loaded properly. Most early games work fine on either machine, it's only when you get to the late 80s do the problems begin. Most NTSC software worked okay on PAL C64s but not vice versa because of the extra coding/scanline reason I mentioned above.

I'll check my trades box tonight for the alignment tape...

[Gerry-Cola]

Two things I remember!
First the well-known terrible problems with de-adjustments of the tape-head.
That causes so much trouble, expecially with faster loading-tapes (turbo-load etc.) on the C64.

It is quite typical that it starts loading correctly and then later starts to fail on the last blocks.

So maybe your head is slightly out of its best working position.

The second thing is more strange and not soo common. I experienced several times serious problems with interferences from my TV (no joke) and my datasette. That meant that during loading for example "HULK" of Adventuresoft International the game always froze during loading. I first thought the tape might be damaged. Tried the other side... the same.

After some days of frustration I tried to place the datasette on the other side of the TV. Like magic everthing worked fine!

This effect occured not that often. But I would give it a try. Try to place the datasette (or the cassette-system you are using) as far away from the TV (or monitor) as possible.

But first check the head-azimuth. It is more likely the main problem.

Of course these stories happend way back in the mid of the eighties...