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The 1-Bit Forum → Posts by mark_lyken
Anyway, nice release
Hopefully I'll get around to making something for the label one day but first I gotta finish that thing I promised for Bit Rot ages ago... ducks
Ha, Ha....
It'll be all the sweeter when it arrives...
Good news!
Downloading now....
My ss key appears to have decided to stop working so have not been able to load onto hardware yet.
(Not sure when that happened as I have been loading things from a divMMC recently)
The developer kindly let me have wavs & snapshots so was able to load them straight into Fuse, had a brief play but will spend more time when I get back to the studio.
Been doing some searching but haven't been able to find a utility program to convert snapshots to .tap files (or wav to tap)
so I can load them onto the spectrum itself.
Assume this isn't quite as simple a process as I would have assumed?
Stumbled across these tools for 16k & 48k Spectrum from developer/synth maker Decadebridge
'CHANCE' is a random note generator software package.
https://vimeo.com/261992956
'TANTRUM' is a collection of beat generating/ hit creator programs.
https://vimeo.com/262663445
Have ordered them on cassette, looking forward to having a play!
Great work Andy. Look forward to seeing/hearing how the project develops.
ps: disco lights are a nice touch!
As an aside, the low price point of the ZX is often mentioned in relation to putting machines in reach of average families but in our household £180 (or whatever the original pricepoint was) was still a considerable chunk of change in 1982 (& still is to be fair!). Lots of my friends parents, including my own, worked at the Timex in the 80's, assembling watches, or manufacturing Spectrums (& later Nimslo 3D cameras).My understanding is staff discounts helped a lot, plus parts & sometimes whole machines were smuggled out & sold in local pubs. There was also a fair bit of skip diving round the back of the Timex for servicable components & by all accounts the occasional complete machine.
https://www.gamejournal.it/the-sound-of … -spectrum/
Surprisingly well-researched, though it fails to acknowledge any of our post-2008 achievements.
Great, will go and read now!
Abertay Uni is in my home town of Dundee.
The Spectrums being manufactured in Dundee led onto amazing things for the city; games industry; a university with strong focus on computer art/game related degrees. A lot to be said too for the amount of ZX's that were "liberated" from the Timex finding there way into young, creative hands!
Spectrum Next Portal is live if anyone is interested. http://www.specnext.com
Pasted below a post by Fabio Belavenuto, "How to put those lovely sound chips to do your biding."
TURBO SOUND NEXT
The internal Spectrum Next and TBBlue Turbo Sound Next interface implements three selectable PSGs, giving access to 9 sound channels plus 3 noise channels. Additionally we have the MOS IC 6581, the Sound Interface Device, aka ‘SID’.
The selection of the current sound IC is done by writing a value in the I/O port 0xFFFD, as below:
Bit 7 = “1”
Bit 6 = Left audio (“1” enabled, “0” disabled)
Bit 5 = Right audio (“1” enabled, “0” disabled)
Bit 4 = “1”
Bit 3 = “1”
Bit 2 = “1”
Bits 1 and 0 as
“’11”: Selects the first PSG (default);
“10”: Selects the second PSG;
“01”: Selects the third PSG.
“00”: Selects the SID.
For example, to select the second PSG, sound on both audio outs:
LD BC,0xFFFD
LD A, 0xFE ; 1111 1110 binary
OUT (C), A
To select SID on right audio only:
LD BC,0xFFFD
LD A, 0xBC ; 1011 1100 binary
OUT (C), A
Commands and data are sent to the standard I/O ports and will be redirected to the currently selected IC.
(to set a register)
LD BC, 0xFFFD
LD A, XX ; select the register: 0 to 15 for PSGs, 0 to 24 for SID
OUT (C), A
(to write to the selected register)
LD BC, 0xBFFD
LD A, XX ; the register value, 0 to 255
OUT (C),A
(to read a selected register)
LD BC, 0xBFFD
IN A,(C)
Totally!
Lyndon S, did say he was working on something, not sure to what extent though.
Ace!
You guys probably know of this but Victor Trucco mentioned OSH (community printed circuit boards) for low costs boards.
Could be useful futher down the line.
Nah, post SLX16.
Ha, ha, I know what you mean on the FM front!
Folks questions and Victor's answers from various points in the thread.
Q:How much LEs takes SID implementation in Next
A:SID implementation 900 LEs. AY, 600 each.
Unfortunately, "big" FMs, only at external bus,
I tested one with more than 50000LEs, but cant remember which FM now.
Q:There is also ePSG8192? http://passionoric.free.fr/eng/project/hsound.htm
A:This is a well known project and have already tested it personally (and probably any other you find). This particularly occupies 35000 LEs, (remember Next had only 9000 and now about 16000 LEs). This ic ALONE already occupies the space of two Nexts. And this VDHL source is still incomplete, missing the ADPCM part.
A:Anyway, I'll be happy to design an open hardware interface with real FM ICs. And Piotr Bugaj can assemble and distribute if he want or anyone can order then PCBs from OSH Park and assemble at home.
A:Unfortunately it's not a catalog where we will simply choose a sound ic and it will be there. The YM2413 was chosen for a number of factors: open code, integration with existing synthesis, space occupied and how much it could add to the sound interface.
A:SID was included for the same reasons the YM2413 was selected. SAA and SN76489 likely to be included also, same reasons
Q:What language is the core written in VHDL?
A:Was written in VHDL, but really doesn´t matter. The synthesis is made "compiling" the sources. Can be VHDL, Verilog, Schematic, whatever... (you can mix all together). And you get a bitstream file on the end, to program the FPGA
A:3 separate AYs = 9 channels, plus SID, another 3 channels, plus FM, another 9 channels. Turbosound Next is compatible with current TS and extend some functionalities to the new ICs
A:Unfortunately, for a better sound than we have today, only with an external interface, as Piotr has already pointed out. ...I know that it is not possible to bring any of these CIs to the project because they simply don't fit into the logical units available on FPGA. It's not me who doesn't want to have the best for the project, it´s just the task can't be achieved.
Holy Crap. That really gets ill in parts!
Sent him a message. Fingers crossed.
Cool. I'll keep an eye out on this thread.
Looking at MDAL now...
True.
Yeah, I assume it's the same LS. He's a member the Next Facebook group.
I asked his opinion during the discussions about sound on the Next. There was chat around the YM2413 FM being replaced with the YM2608 or the YM2203 until Victor T pointed out there simply wasn't enough LE's available to bring about any of the big FM chips.
Lyndon said: "I'd be happy with the 2413's big brother, the 3812. same but with 9 independent wave and adsr control rather just the global one."
Like I say, I don't know him but can certainly send him a message and point him in this direction.
The thread to end all threads. Reading with utmost interest.
As a fan of minimalism and old tech, this really floats my boat.
Live coded sound work is something I am very interested in.
The clacking of the keys really adds to it for me.
Must try my "circuit sniffer" coil mic on the Speccy and see what it reveals.
Nice to add an electroacoustic element to things.
I know right? Can't believe it.
I've never followed a campaign so closely before, it's been a long but exhilarating couple of weeks + the time since it was first announced last year.
I pledged for an accelerated Next + a board. Nice that that board fits in the old speccy case too. If all is well the board ships in August.
Interesting video (below) from Jim Bagley where he talks about his vision for the Next as a standalone programing environment.
I think Jim has updated Zeus (which is included) with new instructions specific to the Next. It's exactly what I wanted to hear.
There was only a couple of us suggesting alternative sound specs but in the end their preference & size of the FPGA dicated their choices.
Victor did suggest he could design an external sound card in future, although he may have just been trying to shut me up ha,ha! Lyndon Sharp said he is working on a new tracker.
JB'S Q&A here: https://youtu.be/WQSgKp1B4xU
Ah, good to know on the tasm_on_calc front. I'll look into the Flash archive once the calc arrives. Ha, Ha, well, maybe as a technical/training excercise translating machine code by hand might be useful (shudders...)
Picked up a TI-84 Plus Silver for cheap. Can't wait to get Houston onto it!
Thought it would be great fun, especially when I'm travelling.
Noticed the tasm_on_calc allows one to program directly in assembly?
It would be ace to be able make some tunes and mess about with assembly on the same device - unless it's one or the other.
Guess I'll find out once I start reading the bits and bobs.
Ah, thanks Shiru. Good to know. I thought it could perhaps be a possibility as the 128 has a MIDI port (albeit a very weird one!) This is all part of the appeal of learning to program on the Spectrum and gaining a sense of its inner workings because at the moment I have a working knowledge of the DAW's, editing software etc that I use but little or no understanding of how any of it works under the hood!
Gotcha.
Will go and mull all that over!
Presumably there's no way to sync/start two machines via midi - Allow one to deal with the graphics and the second with sound? Or would that spoil the fun? ha, ha.
Ah, that makes sense and explains the problem of running graphics and audio at the same time. Were the Z80's themselves used in other systems for sound generation or is it strictly as sound CPU? I did see reference to a Z80 of a sound driver here: http://md.squee.co/Zilog_Z80
I understand recreating the ULA was the trickiest part for creating ZX clones. Okay doke, will download MRS now and read up on the ULA chip! Now you mention it I've seen a few references to Chris Smith's Spectrum ULA book, might have a read of that to familiarise myself with it properly.
Glad you like the music, it's got steadily more abstract and less musical as time has went on!
Ah ok. Nope, no C++ programming experience. I'm a total novice all round as far as programming goes!
To be honest, I'm keen to keep things native and would like to stay away from the Mac entirely if at all possible - I use the laptop for everything else in my work so I'm keen to switch it off in the evenings and use the Speccy.
I realise this is tying a hand behind my back to a certain extent but I'm a little powerbook fatigued + there is an element in my work where I like to employ old tech. My last project generated all of the visuals with a 1950's Heathkit Oscillosope and a hacked Vectrex + modular synth. Example here: https://vimeo.com/141600974 Hours of footage was then cut to the music.
I have my 48k at the moment with a Zaxon DivSD interface arriving this week + a ZX Spectrum Next board which delivers in August. I'm hopeful the Next will be a good computer to program on, taking advantage of it's expanded specs but still utilising the z80, although in FPGA.
Reading through the mnemonic dictionary you linked me too has helped already. I was able to at least recognise correlations between your code and the instructions, so that's a start!
I had a question re: the beeper. Am I right in thinking that in the 48k the sound generation occurs solely between the z80 and the speaker and if that's the case is the recognisable beeper sound is a characteristic of the 40 ohm speaker? Does the signal then flow from speaker to the ear/mic output? I may cringe at this question in a few weeks.....
Thanks utz, that's very generous of you and lots to get me started! I have printed out and bookmarked all of those suggestions.
No worries on the banccamp front, finding that track gave me hope that there were folk out there pushing the envelope so to speak!
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