Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Connected my little VZ300 up to the sound system in my ute, and away we go...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PePs5NY1qdo


Ten plus minutes of a compilation of VZ 1-bit ripped music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2haMu2tPs0

27

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Ha, looks like you've got quite the collection of beeper engines on the VZ now.
I do listen to beeper in the car but I really wish it was as warm and sunny over here like in the first vid, haha.

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Finally managed to get Dark Fusion working.
Seems to be nearly spot on from after listening to the MP3 of the original.

https://youtu.be/tjWRUf_pOw4

Apologies for the potato recording.

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Phaser 3 engine is mostly working. This is Fase Dos and the other song (unsure of its name), both running on a real VZ300.
Please ignore the video display hashing.
I'm pretty stoked with the results considering that this is way beyond the original design capabilities of this computer.
There is something still not quite 100% right though, as can be heard in Fase Dos towards the end.

https://youtu.be/q8fun4KH-FI
https://youtu.be/ols1dqZVXfg    "Fase Dos"

30

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Good work! But indeed I think you've got a bug somewhere, sounds like several notes are missing to me.

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

I've finally thrown up most of my working ports for the VZ from both Utz's, Shiru's and Oleg's incredibly-skilled programming engines, of which, I am always in awe of. There really is only a few lines of code to change to make these work for the VZ computer. Of course, timings are out when you change from "OUT (C), A" to "LD ($6800), A", and I am always selecting one at random to try to improve the sound quality by tying to count cycles and improving the timings. But, at least they do work.

https://github.com/bushy555/VZ200_VZ300___1-bit_tunes

".VZ" is the VZ/Laser emulator snapshot file. These can also be converted into a WAV file, and loaded directly into a real computer.

32

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Wow, what a massive package. Thanks a lot for all your hard work!

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Easter Friday. I did a thing in the shed. Please excuse the mess and the visual aspect - it is supposed to be all about the tunes!

I changed about 20 of the music players that work extremely well on the VZ to play out through its cassette port rather than the piezo speaker (cassette port is bits 2&3 , instead of bits 0&5). Phasers, Buzzkick, Betaphase, Squats, WTBEEP

This is a (rough) 9 minute video showing about ten songs of Utz's and Shiru's that work and sound terrific through the cassette port of a VZ300 computer. They sound so much better than the "tinny" sound of a piezo speaker that sits under the main board inside the keyboard.

Anyway, this is the VZ300 computer. Excuse the missing keys and whatnot - I only picked this particular keyboard up two weeks ago and haven't cleaned it up yet.

Much thanks to Shiru and Utz for their programming skills, their trackers & players, their tunes, their knowledge and for getting me into this 1-bit stuff.
Six years ago not a single VZ/Laser computer enthusiast would have ever thought that this was conceivably possible, yet, here we are. I'm really hoping to get a few more Laser/VZ fans enthused into 1-bit music over on our FB page, since they can now simply load in the music players via standard WAV file cassette loading, and then quickly swap over and plug in amplified speakers to listen to the resulting tunes.

https://youtu.be/77N4k8kGTVM

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Nice! More platforms to the 1-bit love. Having a simple tracker of sorts there would be nice, perhaps?

I can hear that Phaser1 tunes are missing the drums, is this part of the code wasn't ported?

website - 1bit music - other music - youtube - bandcamp - patreon - twitter (latest news there)

35

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Thanks, great to see the beeper love continue down under. Also, looks like you're living in a really nice place.

I think I can support the Vtech machines fairly easily in bintracker, btw. Not sure when I'll get around to it though.

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Very cool vid, enjoyed watching (and listening) to it smile

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Another shed video.   Shiru's "Lets Go" - SquatM engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLj5PDpigEw

...I totally love this song and it's not hard to see why.

38

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Yesss, I love these shed videos! The thought that there's someone on the complete opposite side of the planet listening to 1-bit sounds in a shed out in the countryside is just fantastic. If you don't mind asking, whereabouts in AU are you based?

39 (edited by bushy555 2022-09-25 11:55:18)

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

>If you don't mind asking, whereabouts in AU are you based?
Not at all. About five hours drive north west of Sydney. Small country town, very fertile surrounding land, broadacre farming 100kms in all directions. Sheep & cattle country.

40

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Hey, where'd the rest of the post go? Don't worry about being off-topic, there's no rule against OT on 1-bit forum, hehe.
In any case, that sounds lovely.

Re: 1-bit on the Vtech Laser210/310 and VZ200/VZ300 Z80 computers.

Somewhat useless update - no videos or recordings yet.
Have started integrating playing through internal peizo speaker as well as cassette port on a few of the engines now.

Also have been dabbling in playing the music through the VZ/Laser printer interface port connected directly to some amplified speakers. It is as dead-set so simple as changing the ZX's OUT($FE), A to the VZ's OUT($E), A which is in the range of the printer port being from 0 to $F. No idea why I actually chose $E though. It works.  Connect Centronics pin 6 (D4) to amplified speakers and away we go. 
Still fiddling with it; some of the engines that can output the full 256 bits to the port will make use of a 8-bit R2R resistor DAC, or down the track the use of a dedicated 8-bit DAC chip. (....but this is going 7 bits off-topic.)

Anyway, so far the printer port sounds pretty nifty on TRITONE, Phaser1, 2, and 3, PhaserX, SQUAT and SQUATM; a far nicer fuller sound than the very "tinny" sound of the internal speaker.
Have implemented an output device menu selection for a few of the engines/songs being : Speaker / Cassette Port / Printer Port.

I really wish that this existed back in the 1983 era!