Tap file

File Format
Name	Tap file
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Disk Image Formats Tap file
Extension(s)	.tap
Released	1997

This is the Commodore version of a Tap file. See TAP (ZX Spectrum) for the ZX Spectrum version.

A Tap file encodes the series of pulses used to store data on a Commodore data cassette, capturing the cassette contents at a level of abstraction intermediate between the raw waves (as might be captured in an audio file format) and the data bytes that are stored via the cassette pulses (which might be saved into an application-specific file such as a Commodore 64 binary executable or a Commodore BASIC tokenized file).

The file contains a series of bytes giving the length of each pulse (measured as the time interval between two successive negative edges of the square wave), expressed as the number of microseconds multiplied by 0.123156, rounded to an integer value from 0 to 255.

Identification

At least some Tap files begin with the ASCII string "C64-TAPE-RAW" or "C16-TAPE-RAW".

Format documentation

• Tap format (c64tapes.org)

Software

• Utilities for creating Tap files

Sample files

• ftp://ftp.cbm8bit.com/books_mags_disks-tapes/commodore-format/tapes/
• ftp://ftp.cbm8bit.com/books_mags_disks-tapes/64-tape-computing/

Other links and references

• Creating Tap files from old cassettes
• Putting Tap files back on cassettes for C-64 use (YouTube video)