To get a little bit more entertainment out of a SB600 machine, I lately updated my Emulator to allow different sound output options.
- Sound coming from the 4 or 8 bit onboard DAC (R–2R resistor ladder network)
- Sound from the RTS line of ACIA (as implemented in the Aardvark C1S Roms)
- Sound from a SN76489AN programmable sound generator (PSG with 3 channels pulse noise)
The Emulator is available in 32 or 64 bit and includes a new PRG load and save function to quickly get Basic or machine code programs (or combinations) into the machine.
The SN76489AN programmable sound generator was used in many early 70's home computers. The Christmas.prg shows, how the PSG can be programmed in Basic. Within the .ini configuration file, address location of the SN76489AN can be adapted to existing programs.
For true 4 or 8 bit onboard DAC sound ($DF00 keyboard latch), you can enable and disable the output as defined by the Rev D 600 board by poking a 16(on) or 0(off) to address $D800. After RESET (F12) the sound is automatically disabled to avoid the keyboard scanning routine to be audible.
In other systems, the RTS line on the 6850 was also used as a simple 1-bit sound output. This is available as well.
So a lot of different options to generate music. Attached some program samples to demo the new sound feature.
Tinkering with sound on a Superboard
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bxdanny
- Posts: 336
- Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2015 2:27 pm
- Location: Bronx, NY USA
Re: Tinkering with sound on a Superboard
Very nice. But you probably should work with Mark [Spankus], and let him incorporate your sound support into his more general OSI emulator.
I presume that you are Thomas Buescher, whom he credits with having "enhanced" a UK101 emulator by Ian McLaughlin. I am wondering a bit about just what the timeline of these emulators was. I didn't realize that you were still maintaining your own C1P-specific version of WinOSI.
I presume that you are Thomas Buescher, whom he credits with having "enhanced" a UK101 emulator by Ian McLaughlin. I am wondering a bit about just what the timeline of these emulators was. I didn't realize that you were still maintaining your own C1P-specific version of WinOSI.
No current OSI hardware
Former programmer for Dwo Quong Fok Lok Sow and Orion Software Associates
Former owner of C1P MF (original version) and C2-8P DF (502-based)
Former programmer for Dwo Quong Fok Lok Sow and Orion Software Associates
Former owner of C1P MF (original version) and C2-8P DF (502-based)
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Thomas
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2023 8:53 am
Re: Tinkering with sound on a Superboard
Hi Dan,
yes, still working on the emulator, actually restarted in 2019 to get some issues fixed.
Must have been about 2002 when Markus and I shared source code and since then, development split apart.
In comparison to a more general OSI emulator for all the different 12+ variants, I follow a more narrow path of emulation just the SB600/CP1/UK101 machines and get the most out of it. For example, my Emulator expects some Basic ROM's to be present.
When you combine the SB600/CP1 and UK101, this represents the vast majority of machines sold and is known to many as one of the first computers they owned. The 600' board series was one of the "truly" affordable complete machines and ideal for teaching you how computers work, as well as easy extensions and modifications with your own circuits and ideas.
And yes, Mark is aware of changes I've made recently. His version is remarkably complex with all the settings for many of the possible hardware combinations.
In my last revision, I wanted to improve the usability for the different configurations you want to emulate. As well as adding sound output, low-res graphics and a more intuitive way to load/save programs, like we are used to do nowadays.
If you look to the UK101 community, they have been very active in interfacing the Compukit (see Practical electronics from 1981)
or under http://www.compukit.org/Followup_Articles and a lot of articles and software was about adding sound capabilities to their machines. I also plan to add a AY3-8912 emulation as used by using BASIC X, as this was part of the Premier Publications sound card. Have a look to the 2023 RetroChallenge http://anachrocomputer.blogspot.com/
yes, still working on the emulator, actually restarted in 2019 to get some issues fixed.
Must have been about 2002 when Markus and I shared source code and since then, development split apart.
In comparison to a more general OSI emulator for all the different 12+ variants, I follow a more narrow path of emulation just the SB600/CP1/UK101 machines and get the most out of it. For example, my Emulator expects some Basic ROM's to be present.
When you combine the SB600/CP1 and UK101, this represents the vast majority of machines sold and is known to many as one of the first computers they owned. The 600' board series was one of the "truly" affordable complete machines and ideal for teaching you how computers work, as well as easy extensions and modifications with your own circuits and ideas.
And yes, Mark is aware of changes I've made recently. His version is remarkably complex with all the settings for many of the possible hardware combinations.
In my last revision, I wanted to improve the usability for the different configurations you want to emulate. As well as adding sound output, low-res graphics and a more intuitive way to load/save programs, like we are used to do nowadays.
If you look to the UK101 community, they have been very active in interfacing the Compukit (see Practical electronics from 1981)
or under http://www.compukit.org/Followup_Articles and a lot of articles and software was about adding sound capabilities to their machines. I also plan to add a AY3-8912 emulation as used by using BASIC X, as this was part of the Premier Publications sound card. Have a look to the 2023 RetroChallenge http://anachrocomputer.blogspot.com/
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Mark
- Posts: 297
- Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:04 am
- Location: Madison, WI
- Contact:
Re: Tinkering with sound on a Superboard
Hats off to Thomas for all the advancements he's made! He showed me his work over the last few weeks and it's very impressive.
Lately with the limited time I've had, I"ve been going down the rabbit hole in bug fixing and adding features, starting with diskTool, which led to changes in my WinOSI, and then the BootThis floppy image creator, and I'm still not done. Fixing one issue uncovers 3 more. In the end though, everything will be better off.
Sound support in my WinOSI version has been neglected for far too long. Well, that and the fact that I've come across very few OSI programs that use sound.
Now Thomas has used his sound emulation expertise to create a polyphonic MIDI player and ported the Apple II SAM speech generator to the OSI, which make things more interesting.
Cheers,
-Mark
Lately with the limited time I've had, I"ve been going down the rabbit hole in bug fixing and adding features, starting with diskTool, which led to changes in my WinOSI, and then the BootThis floppy image creator, and I'm still not done. Fixing one issue uncovers 3 more. In the end though, everything will be better off.
Sound support in my WinOSI version has been neglected for far too long. Well, that and the fact that I've come across very few OSI programs that use sound.
Now Thomas has used his sound emulation expertise to create a polyphonic MIDI player and ported the Apple II SAM speech generator to the OSI, which make things more interesting.
Cheers,
-Mark