JonnyBritish Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 A while back Make Magazine published a project on how to make a similar machine using a microcontroller http://makeprojects.com/Project/Pixelmusic+3000/606/1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrspring Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 Yes, i saw that, it looks fun.. Kinda want to get my AVM into this millenium though, if i fail i'll look at building a doppleganger. Comparing the 2600 and AVM diagrams now, think i'll try building another longhorn board.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 oh .. i could need a manual copy too Major necro-bump, but I see you are still active on the forums. I have the manual for mine, but I think it is a bit larger than my scanner. I will try to get a decent scan done this evening, but if I have to stitch images it may take a while. P.S. Took me 8 years to find a decent unit. I got one in the original box complete with Styrofoam inserts and even the desiccant package a few years ago for around $250. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrspring Posted February 17, 2013 Share Posted February 17, 2013 think my unit is defective.. from the (very poor) diagrams of the AVM on the web i can see the CPU has alot of inputs, from controls etc., and some clear outputs to the modulator. I'm not seeing anything like what i should see on those outputs in any sort of repeatable or predictable fashion. Sometimes i can get something that makes sense, but the lack of consistency is making it hard to make a call on what's the right or wrong thing to do. i think tying all the lines to the modulator together via pots to make composite would be the way to go for a quick test, only as i said, i think my unit is flaky at best. I'll try this next time i have free, then if i still get nothing, it's mothballs for the unit which is in suspiciously perfect cosmetic condition.. (You all know what that means!!) i did build another longhorn engineer modboard, the newer design, but it's not alot of use in this case - going to put that in my light sixer to replace the ugly old one i did years back.. Oh, i do see residue on the web of a circuit-bent AVM with composite out that went for sale a while back - it looks lovely in fairness, and after being inside this thing, it's VERY easy to bend, and quite safe too. if i ever get this displaying, it will be modded for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GameGirl420 Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 I was about to post a thread about this in the classic gaming forum,but good thing I checked here. I was watching one of my all-time favorite movies the other day called Over the Edge(1979) and there's several scenes where the characters are looking at a tv screen with the AVM turned on and in full effect. Like in this scene... I had no idea what it was until a good friend of mine pointed it out to me just last night. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Video_Music Really interesting. I really love the history behind that. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 11, 2013 Share Posted March 11, 2013 Great find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GameGirl420 Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 (edited) I soo need one of these now. Edited March 15, 2013 by lushgirl_80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 I soo need one of these now. I hope you have an easier time finding one than I did. Took me almost ten years, and I had to shell out $250 for mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GameGirl420 Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 How many of these were produced exactly? So you just connect it to your tv and stereo and the sounds influence the shapes on the screen? It seems like Atari used this same concept with the Atari Jaguar CD later on. Isn't there a feature in the Jaguar CD that's similar? Like when you play a music CD it makes some psychedelic patterns on the screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 How many of these were produced exactly? So you just connect it to your tv and stereo and the sounds influence the shapes on the screen? It seems like Atari used this same concept with the Atari Jaguar CD later on. Isn't there a feature in the Jaguar CD that's similar? Like when you play a music CD it makes some psychedelic patterns on the screen. Yes to both. 1st - you just connect audio-in to the Atari Video Music, and then connect it to your TV. Bob Brown (creator of the home Pong) invented this in 1976. It was pre-2600 era. It is the oldest audio-reactive light-synth device that I know of. Jeff Minter started working on similar concepts in 1981 with Psychedelia on the Vic-20. This has continued up until present day work on the PC (post X-Box 360). Yes - if you insert any audio CD into the Atari Jaguar (and later Nuon DVD players, and then X-Box 360s), you get a very cool light synthesizer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapetino Posted March 16, 2013 Share Posted March 16, 2013 Fun bump of this thread. I'd love to get one of these too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaNDeE Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 Hi there. Just recovered my good old AVM from the basement for a Festival about circuit bending , music and the the likes, over here in Germany. Have been searching the web for a decent scan of the manual, but only found lousy low res scans. Does anyone got those documents and can scan them for the rest of us? I will do my best and rework the scans to make decent PDF out of it so they can be reprinted. Thanks a million. cheers, dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blinddog Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Heres a scan of the manual I made a while ago. It's 6mb so it looks like I should be able to attach it. I've been working on recreating the schematics too but my hd died as i was working on my first draft I have a hard copy with my notes on it but i haven't gone and recreated it yet or double check the values. c-240 manual.pdf 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaNDeE Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Great. Thanks a million. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaNDeE Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 Not quite sure if I should cry or cheer: http://www.circuitbentvideo.com/2012/09/22/atari-video-music-c-240-back-on-the-workbench/ Probably they are acting against this: http://www.google.com/patents/US4081829 cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Yes to both. 1st - you just connect audio-in to the Atari Video Music, and then connect it to your TV. Bob Brown (creator of the home Pong) invented this in 1976. It was pre-2600 era. It is the oldest audio-reactive light-synth device that I know of. Jeff Minter started working on similar concepts in 1981 with Psychedelia on the Vic-20. This has continued up until present day work on the PC (post X-Box 360). Yes - if you insert any audio CD into the Atari Jaguar (and later Nuon DVD players, and then X-Box 360s), you get a very cool light synthesizer. Minter's inspiration was the AVM and it was brought up often during his work in creating the VLM for the JagCD. I know he designed the version for the XBox 360 so I'm sure he also created the version for the ill-fated Nuon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumzyman Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 Ok .. I found US patent #4081829 .. March 28, 1978 which documents the Atari Video Music. It shows the IC has outputs 21 (Chroma) and 23 (Lumina) as well as Sync going to the RF Modulator. So this would be an easy pick-up .. Maybe for fun... Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA Did anyone ever adapt the 2600 composite/svideo mod to the AVM? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serblander Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Has anyone done the Composite or s-video out mod on an AVM here? Looking at the diagrams is not alot of help since they are poor resolution, it's hard to pick out some things due to blurring, but it does seem like an awful lot of the pins on the CPU are joined together after a resistor ladder on the output side - i guess this is how they are deriving the composite to feed the modulator? going to try building the same mod as would be used on a 2600, see if it works out.. Not sure but i have been wondering if this is possible ever sine i picked one up last year. Would definitely be cool to see a sharper picture (and not have to lug around an R/F capable CRT in order to use it)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumzyman Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 I know it's possible because I've seen a couple modded units for sale. I just can't find any info on the mod itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Vollkasko Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 Hi, is there any chance of a 2600 "ATARI Video Cartridge" with audio line-in and video-output through the game console? Button functions could be replaced by controllers like for SynthCart… or buttons added to the cart. I saw an AVM in the recent ATARI exhibition in Germany and was taken with it. The Make project mentioned above supposedly only speaks NTSC, not PAL. http://makeprojects....usic 3000/606/1 (Obviously I'm not an engineer.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shmup Lover Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 Never knew the AVM existed until reading this thread. Having used the iTunes visualizer circa 2001 on a Quicksilver G4 Mac Pro (the new visualizer on later versions of iTunes are not as good to me) I could really get into the AVM. Upon several sessions in a dark room with headphones under the right mindfulness have yielded profound insights to music and really is useful as a mind expansion tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syzygy1 Posted August 12, 2015 Share Posted August 12, 2015 How does this thing work and can I play my vintage Strawberry Shortcake vinyls I had laying around since the 80s with it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 they're a nightmare to tune to modern TVs...even with a convertor box anyone any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 they're a nightmare to tune to modern TVs...even with a convertor box anyone any ideas? Run it through a VCR first? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 27, 2015 Share Posted September 27, 2015 (edited) yeah, i had already tried that (well thru a DVD recorder) but there was more interference than display. managed to replace the RF lead with an "Atari 800XL RF lead" - the ones with the small oblong box - and hey! presto! - lovely picture. nice bit of kit that looks great on a nice big widescreen TV it's been throwing out some nice stuff in response to "Kashmir" "Hotel California" and I started to think that the frenetic impulses created from "Hocus Pocus" would make it explode Edited September 27, 2015 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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