Category: Platforms

  • Syphus’s Ghettosette

    dsc00308-300x225C64 Datasette – you remember it. The Datasette embodies Commodore cheapskatery from start to finish: it was a cheapo alternative to a proper disk drive, it’s got a crudely thrown-together connector with wires hanging out and it’s even got a skinflint mono drive head apparatus. All expenses spared, so that Jack could keep the costs down!

    dsc00308So it turns out they last pretty well. And in this age of 1541 emulators, MMC64 interfaces and the like, it’s sad to see a Datasette sitting unused and unloved. So I decided to lavish about four quid on mine and turn it into a block-rocking pimp star supreme with:

    * an internal speaker

    * internal 9v battery power

    * an external in (for when I eventually get the recording head to work)

    * a line/headphone output

    * a switch/knob for power and drive motor speed control (though this doesn’t really work yet)

    * an unfeasible amount of mystery line noise, which I’m going to pretend is intentional and adds ‘character’.

    via syphus» Blog Archive » Ghettosette – C64 Datasette/audioplayer conversion.

  • MD2PC Appeared

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    via

    This is quite old, but it should be something people here find useful (once I am done with it tongue).

    The setup consists of a real MD, a flashcart, a controller port to LPT port cable and PC running some host software.
    Cable is same as what is used with Mask of Destiny’s Sega CD Transfer Suite ( http://www.retrodev.com/transfer.html ).
    When all CPU time is put into managing data transfer, you can get 32KByte/sec bandwidth. Things are bidirectional BTW.

    The protocol is made multipurpose so you can do graphics and run code or do whatever you want more besides sound generation. There are a lot of “internal” functions, but you can always send in your own and use those instead.

    Things are incomplete though, as you can hear… only PSG and PCM work, FM is still WiP (I have a very fatal error somewhere in the code that causes lockups and whatnot…).

    What you see on the (poor) vid is my ultr@ modded MD2 being slaved by my work PC that runs my WiP MD Tracker 0.6a that is executed straight from QB45 IDE (mainly because the program is too big so it cannot be compiled anymore ).

    If things go well, there’s gonna be some more stuff coming in summer (along with Win version of the tracker).

    PS: be sure to check the link in vid description for the full tune I used smile

  • Skrasoft on Poly Pokey Midi

    testpolyOne of the features of the MIDI Pokey synth is the ability to have one MIDI channel control all the Pokey voices polyphonically. That allows it to play chords directly from a standard MIDI keyboard without any fancy processing in between. The Pokey has four voices, so it can play four note chords. It can also do three note chords plus a melody line, and any other permutation of four. Making it work was just a matter of deciding how to route multiple notes to multiple channels.

    More info and audio on the Blog. I want this one pretty bad..

  • Manwe “Aliasing” out on UBIKTUNE

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    Ambient shoegazy stuff from UBIKTUNE done mainly on Nintendo DS’s running the DS-10 software.  Get it here, along with the SAV fle for those with flashcarts to check the songs out. Fun!

  • Offworld on: Treewave

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    In reality it just gives me an excuse to post the above video.

    Producer Paul Levering made special note of (I was happy to hear) one Dallas act in particular that I think fits both criteria: Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray’s Tree Wave, who list their MySpace ‘sounds like’s as: My Bloody Valentine / Stereolab / Lali Puna / M83 and Postal Service, and I can’t say it much better. Above is their video for their best track, Sleep.