Dump cartridges from your Aquarius the Emucompboy way!
No unsoldering!  How cool is that?

0.  Hook up your Aquarius to your VCR using your antenna switchbox and channel 3.  If your switchbox and your VCR don't match, you may need a 300ohm->75ohm converter (visit Radio Shack).  Hook up your VCR's audio out to your PC's sound card's audio in.

1.  Hook up your Aquarius cassette cable input to your PC.  You need to load romsnd_BAS_Q.WAV into your Aquarius, so hook up your cassette cable "ear" to your PC's sound card's "line out."  This might be time for another Radio Shack trip.  You won't find what you need in one package, so get a mini female -> mini female adapter (stereo or mono, doesn't matter);  this looks like a gold cylinder with knurls.  Also get a mini male -> RCA female adapter (the one I got is mini plug male -> 2 RCA female).  Stick 'em all together (cassette mini male -> adapter's female;  adapter's other female to mini plug male;  RCA female to the male RCA plug on your audio card's line out cable).

2.  Load in the romsnd_BAS_Q.wav into your Aquarius.  This involves CLOAD on the Aquarius side, and playing the romsnd_BAS_Q.wav on the PC side.  Do NOT use Windows Mediaplayer or anything bundled with Windows -- these distort audio.  Instead, use a sound editor like goldwave.

3.  Jam the cartridge in.  Push it STRAIGHT in.  Don't blow it.  You get only one chance, and the penalty for failure is to possibly fry your Aquarius and your cartridge.  (Note:  I've done this a half dozen times on the Aquarius without frying).

4.  On your sound editor (I use the Creative Wave Studio that came with my sound card), start recording.  44,100 Hz 8-bit mono.

5.  On your Aquarius, type RUN

6.  Sit back.  This will take a while.  A long long while.  About 45 minutes.  You'd better have about 3G of hard drive space available to work with the resulting file.

7.  When it's all done, stop recording on your sound editor and save the WAV file.  Then, copy down the checksum info that the romsnd program thoughtfully printed on your Aquarius screen.

8.  Now, convert the wav file to binary with wav2bin.  This is a console app, so open up a console session on your PC and CD to the appropriate directory.  Then, issue this command:
wav2bin filename.wav filename.txt
where 'filename' is the filename of your WAV file (duh).

9.  Open up filename.txt in notepad or wordpad, or your text editor of choice.
Somewhere in this file, you'll find a couple of reports that look something like this (you may need to search on Nybbles)

Nybbles:(freq based) 512 
Simple checksum 32640
Positional checksum3 66217
Positional checksum7 131070

Nybbles:(samp based) 512 
Simple checksum 32640
Positional checksum3 66217
Positional checksum7 131070

10.  In one or both, you're hoping the checksum info will match what you copied down from running ROMSND on your Aquarius.
If "freq based" matches, then freqbin.bin is the good binary ROM dump file you were looking for.

If "samp based" matches, then sampbin.bin is the good binary ROM dump file you were looking for.

If neither matches, then there's a problem, and neither of the .bin files are a good binary dump.

11.  If you get a good binary dump, you can use the good .bin file with the Virtual Aquarius emulator as a cartridge.

12.  If you get a good binary dump, email the resulting good .bin file to emucompboy@yahoo.com along with your checksum info -- but only do this if you get a good one!

13.  There is no 13.

14.  Note that the ROMSND program is set up to save cartridge area $C000-$FFFF.  This is where most game cartridges reside.  If you want to save a cartridge from some other area, you will need to edit line 40 prior to running the program.  For example, if you want to save out the 8K BASIC ROM, 
40 FORH=000TO031:POKE13315,H
If you want to save out a BASIC extension that resides between $2000 and $2FFF, then
40 FORH=032TO047:POKE13315,H

Or, if you're not sure, then first run the ROMSND program unmodified to save out $C000-$FFFF and then modify line 40 to
40 FORH=000TO047:POKE13315,H
which will save out the lower 12K of memory.

NOTE:  if you change line 40, you need to change line 340 to match it!!!
!!!!

15.  If you get a good binary dump, email the resulting good .bin file to emucompboy@yahoo.com along with your checksum info -- but only do this if you get a good one!


16.  The source code for wav2vbin is included in this zip.  I've had to fiddle with the constants on occasion.  Go have a look at the source.  Especially, look at the bottom, where I've recorded the checksum numbers for astrosmash, snafu, logo, and bioryhthm.

17.  A test WAV file is included in this zip.  If you try it out, the binary files resulting will have the numbers 0-255.

18.  If you're running a BASIC extender cartridge (you know, Extended BASIC or Disk OS BASIC or some other cartridge that adds commands to the built-in BASIC) you'll need to disable it prior to running ROMSND.  To disable your extender, load and run DisableExbas.  That's in this zip as disabl_BAS_Q.wav.



