26 5 Recording programs on cassette The WELCOME cassette supplied with your BBC Microcomputer has a number of programs stored on it. You can store a copy of any program on cassette and then load it back into the machine at some time in the future. It really is just like recording music onto a cassette – you can then play the cassette back a few days later and the music will still be there. If you decide that you don’t want to keep the computer program that you have saved on cassette then you can just record a new program over the old one in the same way that you can re-use a cassette when recording music.
And in the same way that it is very easy to forget where a particular piece of music is recorded on a cassette, so it’s very easy to forget where on the cassette you have stored a particular program. It is very strongly suggested that you use the tape counter to keep an index of where programs are on cassette. Also you must leave gaps between programs . It is easy to let one program run over the start of the next one if they are all squashed close together. If programs do overlap then you will definitely lose one of them. Be warned! Most short programs will only move the cassette tape counter on 30 or 40 positions but play safe and spread the programs out over the length of the cassette.
If you record the first program at 0000, the second at 0100, the next at 0200 and so on then they will be easy to find and they are unlikely to run over each other. Note: don’t make the mistake of trying to record on the clear plastic tape ‘leader’ – wind the tape on by hand until the brown tape itself is exposed. Saving a program on cassette If you have typed a program into your microcomputer then all you have to do to save it is to 1. Insert the cassette into the recorder. 2. Set the tape counter to 0000 when the tape is fully re-wound. 3. Type SAVE "MYPROG" on the computer and then press the RETURN key. 4. The message RECORD then RETURN will appear.