MiSTer FPGA Forum

I have one of these with a handful of tapes. A great video on what I'm talking about by Techmoan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amuRIydCoJk

This would probably be a 'because we can' request and seemingly simple idea. I GREATLY appreciate the ever expanding options in the various ways to use a MiSTer including the Linux side of things like ScummVM. Before anyone thinks preserving such a 'system' like this is silly or debates if the supported quiz titles barely qualify as 'games', Think how awesome it is to have the DEC PDP-1, regardless of how many games you can play on it.

I played on this at a friend's house back in the day and it was tons of fun. I've fascinated younger family with it now and find myself getting genuine laughs from the New Yorker's sped-up voiceovers. If you haven't tried it yet, you can play online virtually at https://www.2xlbot.com/ which Techmoan links to. This is FANTASTIC for fans of it and beats the earlier 'simulator' I had. I never knew how many titles were released for it but Techmoan kind of said all the 8-track tapes were featured and playable here.

It's basically a graphic of the 2-XL robot, reproductions of any needed cardboard overlays for the four buttons, and digitized 'rips' of the original recordings- You then use the mouse to click on which of the four audio tracks to hear at any given time [like viewing different camera angles on some DVD bonus features or playing Sega's Night Trap].

Even a script that just made the website playable on the linux side (with mouse support to navigate it) would be a wonderful stopgap solution for now.
A better version would be a full screen, front of the 2-XL, with the overlays on the belly where they go, and the mouse would point and click the track buttons there. The tape title could appear on the label as part of the overlay, and the volume knob could work with the mouse. The original toy's eyes lit up and flashed in time with the audio played just like a simple vintage volume needle danced.

I don't know how many 8-track tapes of pop music have preserved in such a way, but it would be cool to use a future project like this as a way to play them just like enjoying Commodore or Nintendo music soundtracks on the MiSTer. Who's with me?

I guess I am a secluded few that appreciate this device and/or would like to see such a DE10-Nano implementation which is totally fair. I've always wondered how the 90s cassette version worked, not being an 8 track player. Here is a video for my rare brethren to admire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXWI4iHEV0I

Apparently, on the cassette version, it worked via MONO audio done four times. Basically the Stereo track on one side of the cassette = two of the audio tracks and the same on the reverse of the cassette is true which equals the 4 audio tracks. The player had a 4 head playback mechanism it seems, much like a VCR of the time. This would allow a standard cassette to be read in the THEN-modern age to read like an old 8 track player. Someone needs to do a video on this process/explanation. Techmoan? LGR?

I will repeat: I hope this 'gaming' device gets preserved on the DE10 Nano, one way or another.