The Ultimate Tape Archive V5.0
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Release date: 1st of February, 2024

Welcome to the most complete Commodore 64 cassette archive that exists. By complete, we do not mean it contains all the titles ever made, but all included titles are complete with coverscans and manuals all in one place for you to enjoy.

Bet you didn't expect this?! Neither did we to be honest, but yet here we are.. another 250 additions, making the new total a whopping 2500 unique releases! We had quite a bit of material left after the previous release, and our newest member just kept on delivering the goods. Now we're really all out though, so next release is going to be a while.

This version also features a few fixes, mainly based on comments left on archive.org. We encourage you to keep reporting problems, but preferably directly to our e-mail address (ultimatetapearchive@proton.me) as this will make sure we actually see it. This time we're also including a wanted-list in a separate file. This contains a list of releases we are hoping to find someone who can provide us with high resolution scans of the instructions. Please contact us at the same e-mail address if you can either provide scans, donate or allow us to borrow what we need.

As we've mentioned in every release, we strive for 100% complete releases, but have decided to still include a few releases that we currently miss posters or audio tapes for, since it does not directly affect the playability of the games.

For the tapes that can benefit from index files (.idx, supported by DC2N, NOVA64 and the Ultimate products), we've still done our best to create them, particularly for multi-game compilations and multi-load games. A few of these multi-load games are so poorly programmed, that they do not stop the tape when a title screen or level is loaded. There is no workaround that we can apply for these, so if you find a game not loading properly, be sure to check if this is the cause. There is also one version of the Burner fast loading system we are aware of that will not work on all C64s. This is because the loader is written using unofficial machine code instructions, some of which are unstable and create different results on different C64s.

We have as usual used Tape Manager V1.3 (https://csdb.dk/release/?id=172213) to organize the content, and again exported an sqlite-file for the NOVA64 front end (or other applications that may have implemented it). The latest version of the NOVA64 front end can be downloaded from CSDB (https://csdb.dk/release/?id=237664). The front-end will enable you to run the images on both emulators and on real C64s (with additional hardware). The latest version will also make it possible to start VICE (later versions) using the offsets in the index files, making game compilations more useful in VICE if you choose to launch your games from within the front end.

And also as before...

You are free to distribute this archive to your friends, but it should always remain 100% free and kept away from any solutions that require any kind of registration or payment. Apart from that, we do not care much about what happens, as we consider this a piece of history, OUR history. 

Special thanks to Stadium64 for once again providing some missing instructions. Much appreciated!


If you for that or any other reason want to get in touch with us, we can now be reached at ultimatetapearchive@proton.me

Until next time, we still hope you will have fun and find lots of great (and maybe some not so great) memories!


Signed,
The Ultimate Tape Archive Team