Just prepping to relax and to watch a tv show whose music (by Éric Patenaude of Plogue), contains quite a few blips from your favorite in-dev synth :)
Listen to the intro and spot the blips!
LINK
Et Félicitations encore à toi Éric!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
The kind of screenshot I fancy
I rechecked my DMG waveform synthesis yesterday, and made sure I had the range and AC Coupling emulation right according to the lowest 32Hz freq of the DMG Wave Channel.
(i dont have a pro mod DMG, I personnaly like the sound of the phones out of mine)
EDIT: For fairness to the scientific community, here are the actual samples.
1)chipsounds
2)DMG phone out
Slight tonal difference, but as herr_prof mentionned it can sound different from DMG to DMG.
More: Spectrum of DMG:
More: Spectrum of chipsounds:
You can save the files and animate them, as you will see the real DMG has some broadband noise at -90db, while chipsounds is pretty flat. Should i add extra noise samples to mix in? I seriously thought about adding them as extras
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
No fancy research, just preset making
But presets can take a while, there's just so much messing around associated with the task.
This is one of my favorite SID style arps
This is one of my favorite SID style arps
Friday, August 14, 2009
Testing the Wave Sequencer module
Paul Slocum's amazing ATARI synthcart beats remixed in chipsounds...
(just random pitchbend/mod wheel action on the first loop)
(just random pitchbend/mod wheel action on the first loop)
Thursday, August 6, 2009
uPD1771C Tester App
Hum and I thought my POKEY sounded abrasive...
Until This
Making this app (in a non-existing assembler) was such a pain, it was better be worth it. This is "one sound". Most definitely some AND/OR'ing of two bit patterns. Research goes on... yummy!
Until This
Making this app (in a non-existing assembler) was such a pain, it was better be worth it. This is "one sound". Most definitely some AND/OR'ing of two bit patterns. Research goes on... yummy!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
ROM Trojaning the Super Cassette Vision
Hi.
Each time I do something geeky I tell myself "now THIS is THE most geeky thing I did in my life". But whatever happens, this is a phrase I tell myself month after month working on chipsounds....
Which brings us to the wonderful topic of ROM Trojaning!
But nah, lets put things in context first. :)
The idea behind chipsounds is not to put in VSTi form what people have been doing with gameboys for nearly a decade now with LSDJ/NL. The idea is to analyze, salvage and reproduce the entire crunchy 80's aural history from oblivion.
Early 80s sound chips are unique because they were EXERCISES. Nobody (except for Yannes) had a clue of what they were doing. The engineers that were given the task to come up with a soundchip were seldom musicians. So they tried and invented as they went along. Some things worked, others were dogey, but we fell in love with them anyway. Some chips were hugely popular, others faded, in most cases it was more a question of the success of their console and games more than their sound quality.
The Epoch SCV was crushed by the famicom a mere year after its launch... However, reading about its specs, I was instantly curious about its obscure sound generator. Some sound bytes taken from the net, including this one made one thing clear, this thing didn't just generate square waves!
So a month ago I bought a PAL version of this console (renamed YENO in France), with three ROMS which I started playing with and recording right away (to get a rough idea of the spectrum of sounds it could create).
Here is some of that.
Safe to say It definitely warranted its place in chipsounds :)
But now that's where the fun parts starts. Nearly nothing is known about its soundchip, the NEC uPD1771C. Here is a picture of mine:
The only known research comes from three talented Japanese people: Mr Enri, Mr 333 and Takeda Toshiya.
Their research provided the world with a nice emulator for the console, and tons of reverse engineering details.... including a disassembler for its obscure NEC cpu.
However, the BIOS Rom for that machine (4096 Bytes) is stored inside the main cpu (NEC D7801G or uPD7801G). And its nowhere to be found online. This BIOS code holds the key to how the console talks to the chip, and without it I would have lost many (more) days to try to extract all the raw data i need for analysis. (perhaps i would have abandoned the idea altogether) To be fair, no one can blame them for not providing the bios rom online. It is indeed is a breach of copyright law! (you wont get it from me directly either)
The Mr Henri proposed a solution to grab the rom which requires a battery backed ram cartridge and some "thing" to read it back which I have no clue is what (especially with babelengrish). However I have a fascination with the trojaning research some people, including GURU have done for the MAME/MESS projects...
So I came up with a VERY LAME solution, but one that didn't require modding my rare console, or buy yet more special equipment. I however really need to give Compute's Gazette magazine some credit for my idea (MLX) ... hehe
The idea is to transform the 4096 rom bytes in something that can be printed and humanly retyped without errors, using a checksum after each line typed.
SO
1)I wrote a ROM for the console which spewed out the ENTIRE thing onto 30 PAL frames with a running check sum on each line. (You have to realize that there is NO DIRECT ASSEMBLER FOR A D7801G; only for D7810s which only as about 75% of the same byte code. Even a simple instructions like RET is different)
2)Placed the ROM on a W27C512 chip then onto a 16Kb Cart PCB:
(an electrically erasable eprom is handy when you do a hundred trials)
3)Recorded my hacked SCART/RBG/PAL output to a NTSC Canon MiniDV camera whose composite input -somehow- seem to accept its signal)
4)Transferred to the computer using Firewire
5)Saved each 30 frames separately. Here is the first one:
(note I really wanted full HEX code, but I had to be lazy somewhere right? .. so value=input-'0';
6)Batch-Massaged the picture a bit. (contrast mostly)
7)Tried to OCR the bloody thing for fun (I knew it wouldn't do any good).
8)Last resort... Back at work Monday morning, I used the whole company (we are 5 now) for a one hour intelligent typing challenge!
9)We got 'a' BIOS ROM:
MD5 : 635a978fd40db9a18ee44eff449fc126
SHA1 : 6e89d1227581c76441a53d605f9e324185f1da33
CRC32 : 7ac06182
Tried it in the eSCV emu... and it worked!!!!
I could NOW start the real work
I disassembled the BIOS and looked for the simple code that the console plays when pressing the pause button... this gave me exactly what I needed to know in order to generate the lists of values to be sent to the real chip in loop, (to check for waveform pattern changes, pitch limits etc).
The D1771C on that end is completely different from the typical !WR/!CS address/d0-d7 thing...
And its more like MIDI, in a sense that its a state machine of bytes. 4 bytes (with interrupt based ACK) to play a tone, and 10 bytes for a noise message. A pain.
Im still capturing waveforms and analyzing them, but I figured there was enough for a long overdue post on this blog.
Thanks for the Plogue Team. (Seb/Max had a tie... Seb finished first but had one checksum error. While Max finished last but had no errors)... I was pretty pathetic myself... Finished second with 7 errors... cant be good at everything :)
Here is the rom to CAPTURE the BIOS, (including the ASM file to modify it).
EDIT: Ive updated the zip file with more comments and example decoding code for anyone else attempting to dump the BIOS (including the NTSC one)
Each time I do something geeky I tell myself "now THIS is THE most geeky thing I did in my life". But whatever happens, this is a phrase I tell myself month after month working on chipsounds....
Which brings us to the wonderful topic of ROM Trojaning!
But nah, lets put things in context first. :)
The idea behind chipsounds is not to put in VSTi form what people have been doing with gameboys for nearly a decade now with LSDJ/NL. The idea is to analyze, salvage and reproduce the entire crunchy 80's aural history from oblivion.
Early 80s sound chips are unique because they were EXERCISES. Nobody (except for Yannes) had a clue of what they were doing. The engineers that were given the task to come up with a soundchip were seldom musicians. So they tried and invented as they went along. Some things worked, others were dogey, but we fell in love with them anyway. Some chips were hugely popular, others faded, in most cases it was more a question of the success of their console and games more than their sound quality.
The Epoch SCV was crushed by the famicom a mere year after its launch... However, reading about its specs, I was instantly curious about its obscure sound generator. Some sound bytes taken from the net, including this one made one thing clear, this thing didn't just generate square waves!
So a month ago I bought a PAL version of this console (renamed YENO in France), with three ROMS which I started playing with and recording right away (to get a rough idea of the spectrum of sounds it could create).
Here is some of that.
Safe to say It definitely warranted its place in chipsounds :)
But now that's where the fun parts starts. Nearly nothing is known about its soundchip, the NEC uPD1771C. Here is a picture of mine:
The only known research comes from three talented Japanese people: Mr Enri, Mr 333 and Takeda Toshiya.
Their research provided the world with a nice emulator for the console, and tons of reverse engineering details.... including a disassembler for its obscure NEC cpu.
However, the BIOS Rom for that machine (4096 Bytes) is stored inside the main cpu (NEC D7801G or uPD7801G). And its nowhere to be found online. This BIOS code holds the key to how the console talks to the chip, and without it I would have lost many (more) days to try to extract all the raw data i need for analysis. (perhaps i would have abandoned the idea altogether) To be fair, no one can blame them for not providing the bios rom online. It is indeed is a breach of copyright law! (you wont get it from me directly either)
The Mr Henri proposed a solution to grab the rom which requires a battery backed ram cartridge and some "thing" to read it back which I have no clue is what (especially with babelengrish). However I have a fascination with the trojaning research some people, including GURU have done for the MAME/MESS projects...
So I came up with a VERY LAME solution, but one that didn't require modding my rare console, or buy yet more special equipment. I however really need to give Compute's Gazette magazine some credit for my idea (MLX) ... hehe
The idea is to transform the 4096 rom bytes in something that can be printed and humanly retyped without errors, using a checksum after each line typed.
SO
1)I wrote a ROM for the console which spewed out the ENTIRE thing onto 30 PAL frames with a running check sum on each line. (You have to realize that there is NO DIRECT ASSEMBLER FOR A D7801G; only for D7810s which only as about 75% of the same byte code. Even a simple instructions like RET is different)
2)Placed the ROM on a W27C512 chip then onto a 16Kb Cart PCB:
(an electrically erasable eprom is handy when you do a hundred trials)
3)Recorded my hacked SCART/RBG/PAL output to a NTSC Canon MiniDV camera whose composite input -somehow- seem to accept its signal)
4)Transferred to the computer using Firewire
5)Saved each 30 frames separately. Here is the first one:
(note I really wanted full HEX code, but I had to be lazy somewhere right? .. so value=input-'0';
6)Batch-Massaged the picture a bit. (contrast mostly)
7)Tried to OCR the bloody thing for fun (I knew it wouldn't do any good).
8)Last resort... Back at work Monday morning, I used the whole company (we are 5 now) for a one hour intelligent typing challenge!
9)We got 'a' BIOS ROM:
MD5 : 635a978fd40db9a18ee44eff449fc126
SHA1 : 6e89d1227581c76441a53d605f9e324185f1da33
CRC32 : 7ac06182
Tried it in the eSCV emu... and it worked!!!!
I could NOW start the real work
I disassembled the BIOS and looked for the simple code that the console plays when pressing the pause button... this gave me exactly what I needed to know in order to generate the lists of values to be sent to the real chip in loop, (to check for waveform pattern changes, pitch limits etc).
The D1771C on that end is completely different from the typical !WR/!CS address/d0-d7 thing...
And its more like MIDI, in a sense that its a state machine of bytes. 4 bytes (with interrupt based ACK) to play a tone, and 10 bytes for a noise message. A pain.
Im still capturing waveforms and analyzing them, but I figured there was enough for a long overdue post on this blog.
Thanks for the Plogue Team. (Seb/Max had a tie... Seb finished first but had one checksum error. While Max finished last but had no errors)... I was pretty pathetic myself... Finished second with 7 errors... cant be good at everything :)
Here is the rom to CAPTURE the BIOS, (including the ASM file to modify it).
EDIT: Ive updated the zip file with more comments and example decoding code for anyone else attempting to dump the BIOS (including the NTSC one)
Friday, July 10, 2009
A new format to log them all.
While doing my Chip research I stumbled upon many different formats to store “chip music information”.
Some of them contain the full assembly code used by the original console/video game
-SID (C64 6510 assembly)
-NSF (NES)
-SAP (Atari 8bit computers with POKEY chips in them)
(etc)
Others only contained the actual register values WRITES along with their timestamps:
-VGM (SN, YM2612, YM2151 etc)
Both have pros and cons, But I do prefer the VGM approach, since it abstracts the chip from its processor, it allows much easier re-purposing of the music data streams. For instance, in order to use a direct PIC interface, parallel port, arduino, what-have-you to play the data back on a real chip.
For my continuing analysis and cross checking, I need to do bunch of tests on chip register data (especially for SID and POKEY).
I also need to edit entries, filter some registers, add comments to specific writes, play the result, record, analyze in a sound editor, using various home made tools.
I usually also had to type or procedurally generate long lists of chip register commands in order to hear how some chips behave under specific scenarios, and also to record a long series of chromatic notes for a sampler mapping (SID combined waveforms in chipsounds using SFZ mapping) etc, without having to delve into this or that system's native assembly each time. (I had to do that too many times that I dont miss it much)
I thought of using the VGM format and extending it but:
1)Its binary only
2)Only logs writes at 44100 Hz, (while some emulators run at full master clock of 3.57MHz or more, so you DO lose information)
3)Its been patched a lot through revisions, and is hard to maintain.
4)NIH :)
So really I just went with the simplest thing I could come up with.
VGMX!! (Extended VGM or VGM XML) .. how original
The format is very simple it doesn't require a DTD (especially since most of us use modified TinyXML source trees right?)
It goes something like this:
Note: clock and rate are two different things. Clock is the actual oscillator frequency feeding the chip, while rate is the time base for the writes. (emulator timebase in many case)
This is very preliminary, but I hope that this interest somebody.
In closing here are a few examples of real files and rendered results from my protoboard+pic setup
1)7800 Ballblazer (VGMX) (MP3)
2)C64 Great Gianna Sisters Doom (VGMX) (MP3)
Some of them contain the full assembly code used by the original console/video game
-SID (C64 6510 assembly)
-NSF (NES)
-SAP (Atari 8bit computers with POKEY chips in them)
(etc)
Others only contained the actual register values WRITES along with their timestamps:
-VGM (SN, YM2612, YM2151 etc)
Both have pros and cons, But I do prefer the VGM approach, since it abstracts the chip from its processor, it allows much easier re-purposing of the music data streams. For instance, in order to use a direct PIC interface, parallel port, arduino, what-have-you to play the data back on a real chip.
For my continuing analysis and cross checking, I need to do bunch of tests on chip register data (especially for SID and POKEY).
I also need to edit entries, filter some registers, add comments to specific writes, play the result, record, analyze in a sound editor, using various home made tools.
I usually also had to type or procedurally generate long lists of chip register commands in order to hear how some chips behave under specific scenarios, and also to record a long series of chromatic notes for a sampler mapping (SID combined waveforms in chipsounds using SFZ mapping) etc, without having to delve into this or that system's native assembly each time. (I had to do that too many times that I dont miss it much)
I thought of using the VGM format and extending it but:
1)Its binary only
2)Only logs writes at 44100 Hz, (while some emulators run at full master clock of 3.57MHz or more, so you DO lose information)
3)Its been patched a lot through revisions, and is hard to maintain.
4)NIH :)
So really I just went with the simplest thing I could come up with.
VGMX!! (Extended VGM or VGM XML) .. how original
The format is very simple it doesn't require a DTD (especially since most of us use modified TinyXML source trees right?)
It goes something like this:
Note: clock and rate are two different things. Clock is the actual oscillator frequency feeding the chip, while rate is the time base for the writes. (emulator timebase in many case)
This is very preliminary, but I hope that this interest somebody.
In closing here are a few examples of real files and rendered results from my protoboard+pic setup
1)7800 Ballblazer (VGMX) (MP3)
2)C64 Great Gianna Sisters Doom (VGMX) (MP3)
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Sequential Circuits Model 64 Sequencer
(sorry for the old photo)
I dumped the contained EPROM (which works in Vice), including PCB pictures HERE. HOWEVER. Unless someones emulates the onboard ACIA and PIA chips in a Vice ad-don, this is really just an exercise in digital archeology.
EDIT (2013) This cartridge has been used by the MMA to showcase the enduring power of the MIDI Standard.
more info:
http://www.prophet64-forum.com/viewtopic.php?id=460
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue56/124_1_Reviews_Sequential_Circuits_Music_Sequencer_For_Commodore_64.php
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
SID filter emulation ... perhaps a _tad_ bit too extreme.
Extremely distorted 6581 filter running a combined Waveform arpeggio.
Yes I know this is not strictly accurate but its a fun diversion while i tune it.
Yes I know this is not strictly accurate but its a fun diversion while i tune it.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Evolution of sucking
Choice to desolder chips:
1)5$ (and millions of curses)
2)20$ (less curses but a lot of frustration)
3)200$ (And worth every penny.)
Saturday, May 30, 2009
CMS (Dual Philips SAA 1099) Recordings
Here's a rarity, carefully sampled for you.
Before the soundblaster, there was the Creative Music System (CMS) (AKA GameBlaster), which contained two Philips SAA 1099 chips.
It pretty much bombed since the OPL2/Adlib was all the rage at that point.
Nevertheless, the thing has some charm. Here are two recordings made on a SB 2.0 CT1350A (with the SAA chips factory installed as legacy option)
Doodle
Loom
More can be found here
Before the soundblaster, there was the Creative Music System (CMS) (AKA GameBlaster), which contained two Philips SAA 1099 chips.
It pretty much bombed since the OPL2/Adlib was all the rage at that point.
Nevertheless, the thing has some charm. Here are two recordings made on a SB 2.0 CT1350A (with the SAA chips factory installed as legacy option)
Doodle
Loom
More can be found here
Friday, May 29, 2009
8 hours of (why would I buy a flash cart?) later
Cart:
ROM Test:
Note1: this is a bare cart with no battery backup or mapper. Will only run 256 kBit /32KB roms ... which is more than I need for my tests.
Note2: the quote should read please dont _PUT_ your wires in my brain.
ROM Test:
Note1: this is a bare cart with no battery backup or mapper. Will only run 256 kBit /32KB roms ... which is more than I need for my tests.
Note2: the quote should read please dont _PUT_ your wires in my brain.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Total Stereo separation ATARI 2600 Jr Mod
There are various NTSC 2600 RCA A/V mods out there. Four years ago (note WAAAAAY before I thought of making chipsounds) there were a only a few that I didn't really like since either the mod was mono, or stereo but with huge L+R bleed that didn't really cut it for me.
Four years ago, I also had about zero electronics knowledge, so I hacked the most horrible thing which you can see here:
Instead of feeding the same voltage source to both channels, like in that schematic, I modded it by added TWO 7805's onto an external duck-taped protoboard onto the console itself.
Each of them "feeding" DC component into one of the two TIA audio outputs.
As always I try to bypass AC coupled electrolytic caps - however dangerous this is - to tap in closer to the original signal as possible (in hindsight I should have buffered the signals as well with an opamp).
However ugly it is, it works perfectly for my own taste.
Whats cool about stereo mods? Well to completely isolate effects used by programmers, remember that two channels is not much.
Pacman's horrible intro "tune"
ET's Landing
Notice the TOTAL absence of Background noise. (mp3 encoding did the worst)
Note#2: The Atari Cartridge PCB is from Pixels Past. Build to use 27128 EPROMS (see previous). So fun code can be easily ran and recorded. Dont worry I do have original game carts for Pacman and ET . Like who doesnt.
Four years ago, I also had about zero electronics knowledge, so I hacked the most horrible thing which you can see here:
Instead of feeding the same voltage source to both channels, like in that schematic, I modded it by added TWO 7805's onto an external duck-taped protoboard onto the console itself.
Each of them "feeding" DC component into one of the two TIA audio outputs.
As always I try to bypass AC coupled electrolytic caps - however dangerous this is - to tap in closer to the original signal as possible (in hindsight I should have buffered the signals as well with an opamp).
However ugly it is, it works perfectly for my own taste.
Whats cool about stereo mods? Well to completely isolate effects used by programmers, remember that two channels is not much.
Pacman's horrible intro "tune"
ET's Landing
Notice the TOTAL absence of Background noise. (mp3 encoding did the worst)
Note#2: The Atari Cartridge PCB is from Pixels Past. Build to use 27128 EPROMS (see previous). So fun code can be easily ran and recorded. Dont worry I do have original game carts for Pacman and ET . Like who doesnt.
Friday, May 15, 2009
We had Joy we had fun, We had EPROMs in the sun.
Yes, am all aware that there are proper tools to do this "professionally". But this is way cooler. One and a half day suffice to erase them to 0xFF's.
Way faster than it used to be in the 70's? (debatable), but I otherwise DO miss the ozone layer.
NOTE from this site
"UV-C radiation, which is lethal, is emitted at wavelengths of 200-280 nm. Fortunately, UV-C is completely absorbed by atmospheric ozone and oxygen. Even with severe ozone reduction, UV-C radiation would still be absorbed by the remaining ozone."
EPROMs require UV-C's (according to wikipedia) ... hum .. anyway, 1.5 day to wipe my 27128's is an actual observation.
I have got 20 or so 271282's (salvaged from an arcade board), so this erasing delay is a non issue for my Console/Cartridge development.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The weight in gold of obsolescence
Gold price is currently 900 USD an ounce. It is one of the only safe investing bets for the current economy... However that's bad news for you and me.
Last Friday I took off early and indulged in some long overdue electronic junk treasure hunt. Visited two of my best spots in Montreal pcrecycle and 1800parts.
Whats funny in fact is that I was looking for a device I had myself thrown away 10 years ago. The original Sound Blaster 1.0. Who would have thought that I would now need an obscure chip from this board .. not talking about the YM3812 (OPL2) – but a SAA 1099 which would have been, I think very easy to add to chipsounds, especially when i could just compile a little C program in borland DOS compiler and make it scream from its ISA slot in my 486 for my now routine steps of noise pattern and bit mixing analysis.
Only two years ago I remember that place had a HUGE box of ISA audiocards, filled with valuable chiptune goodies on them (got about 15 boards with OPL3 chips on them, inducing the pretty rare Adlib Gold, and (even rarer) a Microsoft Windows SOUNDSYSTEM ... wait did you see that properly? Microsoft branded SOUND CARD!!!
But now all that is.... now nowhere to be found, “Went to Africa a long time ago!”.
...
The later shop owner gave me a odd look, and said -off the bat-, all that went to Germany a while ago (according to him the current biggest player in large-scale computer recycling) Why do we keep hearing about China all the time?... media fascination I guess.
I also Keep Wondering whether or not my obsession with “old junk” is (even remotely) an eco-statement, or if its just retarded geeky nostalgia. Whatever I buy will end up in recycling anyway.
So I have a look around, try to listen to all his stuff about bad customers and the provincial difference in police behavior in a merchant/client dispute.... I just kept obsessing about the damn cards.
Q"Are you SURE you don't have a dump with old ISA cards in them"
A"well each of them is worth 3$ in gold so you would need to give me more, like 5$ each"
Q"O...K... that's not really a problem"
Two stories higher (guy has LOADS of server/printer stuff)
found a container headed for recycling, which I spent 30 minutes digging through.
A bunch of them, mostly crappy Vibra 16 Sound Blasters, but nothing as old as an 8bit SB 1.0 card. However, here's what I scored:
Just couldn't resist its beauty. Also a Gravis GF1 chip is hard to come by, and may become handy in say chipsounds 5.0 ;)
But now with all the children suffering in this sad world, why do I imagine all those SID chips melting in Aqua Regia????
(anyone with a SB1.0 card that wants a free chipsounds license just send me a shout)
EDIT: I just won a rare CT1350A Stuffed with two SAA chips!
Last Friday I took off early and indulged in some long overdue electronic junk treasure hunt. Visited two of my best spots in Montreal pcrecycle and 1800parts.
Whats funny in fact is that I was looking for a device I had myself thrown away 10 years ago. The original Sound Blaster 1.0. Who would have thought that I would now need an obscure chip from this board .. not talking about the YM3812 (OPL2) – but a SAA 1099 which would have been, I think very easy to add to chipsounds, especially when i could just compile a little C program in borland DOS compiler and make it scream from its ISA slot in my 486 for my now routine steps of noise pattern and bit mixing analysis.
Only two years ago I remember that place had a HUGE box of ISA audiocards, filled with valuable chiptune goodies on them (got about 15 boards with OPL3 chips on them, inducing the pretty rare Adlib Gold, and (even rarer) a Microsoft Windows SOUNDSYSTEM ... wait did you see that properly? Microsoft branded SOUND CARD!!!
But now all that is.... now nowhere to be found, “Went to Africa a long time ago!”.
...
The later shop owner gave me a odd look, and said -off the bat-, all that went to Germany a while ago (according to him the current biggest player in large-scale computer recycling) Why do we keep hearing about China all the time?... media fascination I guess.
I also Keep Wondering whether or not my obsession with “old junk” is (even remotely) an eco-statement, or if its just retarded geeky nostalgia. Whatever I buy will end up in recycling anyway.
So I have a look around, try to listen to all his stuff about bad customers and the provincial difference in police behavior in a merchant/client dispute.... I just kept obsessing about the damn cards.
Q"Are you SURE you don't have a dump with old ISA cards in them"
A"well each of them is worth 3$ in gold so you would need to give me more, like 5$ each"
Q"O...K... that's not really a problem"
Two stories higher (guy has LOADS of server/printer stuff)
found a container headed for recycling, which I spent 30 minutes digging through.
A bunch of them, mostly crappy Vibra 16 Sound Blasters, but nothing as old as an 8bit SB 1.0 card. However, here's what I scored:
Just couldn't resist its beauty. Also a Gravis GF1 chip is hard to come by, and may become handy in say chipsounds 5.0 ;)
But now with all the children suffering in this sad world, why do I imagine all those SID chips melting in Aqua Regia????
(anyone with a SB1.0 card that wants a free chipsounds license just send me a shout)
EDIT: I just won a rare CT1350A Stuffed with two SAA chips!
Monday, April 27, 2009
SIDs through the ages
Here is a glimpse of some of my collected chips.While the first one on this picture is dated 83, ive seen a few 1982 ones.
(i must have got one somewhere, probably broken in a bin :)
So they span roughly 10 years in production, in various places in the world
Phillipines, Korea, Hong Kong.
Its hard to find perfectly good working pre-8580 SID chips, as the vast majority of them all seem to have defects in one area or another due to age or power on/off cycle stress. (higher heat dissipation?)
Sometimes its missing voices, missing noises, filter nearly silent, etc.
I try to capture waveforms and run tests the best I can with them. I've got
a perfectly running 6581R4 AR that I baby everyday (not pictured here due to its ugly "blurred in white goo" look)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Pokeys under Limestone
Few people know that there are literally thousands of Pokey Chips stored in a limestone cave somewhere in Kansas City. A liquidation company bought truckloads of mint unopened ATARI carts, and among these is the ATARI 7800 version of Ballblazer.
While I didn't feel like ripping apart a perfectly good mint unopened box, I nevertheless scourged through my cartridge collection and opened mine for fun. The third photo shows the desoldered Pokey chip, under the one I got NOS from a dealer (note the manufacturing dates - 5 years apart).
Next I placed the salvaged '87 pokey on my protoboard and played it the Ballblazer title track through it. Love those fat basses.
NOTE1, The ATARI 400/800 (home computer) has a native pokey chip, and the Ballblazer title sounds exactly (to my ears) as it does on the 7800 Cart, its logical to assume that the LucarFilm Games authors didn't want to alter their composition by only using 7800's native TIA chip... but did it justify adding a chip to the cart which would boost production costs a lot? if someone has some info on this i would be curious to know.
NOTE2, the other 7800 Game cart that contained a Pokey chip is Commando, but its not available in the cave.
While I didn't feel like ripping apart a perfectly good mint unopened box, I nevertheless scourged through my cartridge collection and opened mine for fun. The third photo shows the desoldered Pokey chip, under the one I got NOS from a dealer (note the manufacturing dates - 5 years apart).
Next I placed the salvaged '87 pokey on my protoboard and played it the Ballblazer title track through it. Love those fat basses.
NOTE1, The ATARI 400/800 (home computer) has a native pokey chip, and the Ballblazer title sounds exactly (to my ears) as it does on the 7800 Cart, its logical to assume that the LucarFilm Games authors didn't want to alter their composition by only using 7800's native TIA chip... but did it justify adding a chip to the cart which would boost production costs a lot? if someone has some info on this i would be curious to know.
NOTE2, the other 7800 Game cart that contained a Pokey chip is Commando, but its not available in the cave.
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