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Showing results for tags 'pokey'.
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How many mods has someone actually squeezed into a 600XL? I love the small size, but realistically I know there is limited real estate inside. It would be great to have everything: U1MB, VBXE, stereo pokey board, u-switch, TK-II or AKI, Rapidus, and I'd have to do the 64k and a/v mods. Is it doable or do I need to play it safe with a larger model?
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Hi All, Seriously, I have no idea what is happening here. I am working on a TURBO BASIC program that will let the user exercise their (relative) ear. It is planned to test intervals melodic and harmonic and probably a few other things. To come as close as possible to the wanted frequency (I have really a sensitive and precise ear) I use 16-bit pokey registers in stead of 8bit. Downside is that I only can play 2 tones together, but ok... Perhaps I might decide later to go to the 8bit 4# voice capabilities of pokey. Earlier today I found that DSOUND 0,4020,10,10 would produce a perfect 220Hz A and and DSOUND 0,2008,10,10 would produce a perfect 440Hz A. I was very happy with the results, I saved my program to disk and that was that. Now I fired up the Atari with Turbo Basic and I was playing again with the DSOUND command and I was not as satisfied as I was earlier today. I was like: hmm it is not right. So I started playing again with it and I found different values. After checking: DSOUND 0,4028,10,10 gives the perfect 220Hz A DSOUND 0,2017,10,10 gives the perfect 440Hz A DSOUND 0,1001,10,10 gives the perfect 880Hz A Ok it is not really a big difference, but still, I was not as close as I would have thought. So my 2 questions are: How stable is this anyway? Can I assume that pokey in 16bit modus produces a steady frequency or does it fluctuate (when colder/warmer) or is it a different part on the PCB that might have influence on the frequency? (Like the audio-out circuit)? I am using the speaker of my television set, so it is not directly what comes out of pokey. In the Turbo Basic Manual by Wil Braakman I read a formula: "de berekende frequentie in HERZ nu 1789790 / (2*freq+14) bedraagt. De frequentie bedraagt dan 16 bit (0 . . . . 65535)" (Braakman, 1988, p. 3-36). This means that the 16bit pokey value for 440Hz would be: 1789790 / (2*440+14) is approx. 2002 which is closer to my earlier find of 2008, and than my newer find of 2017. It seems that either this formula is wrong, or my ears/tuner-app. My personal findings using ear and tuner-app come way more close to 220Hz, 440Hz and 880hz than this formula. Is there a better formula somewhere? Or is there something else wrong? Or do I ask too much of a formula anyway? I am really interested in this stuff, I hope someone can help. Marius -- Braakman, W. (1988). TURBO BASIC XL 1.5 MANUAL. 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands: Stichting Atari Gebruikers.
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I wanted to try my hand at making a fun little utility, that programmers, whether they code in machine language, or 7800basic, could use to help them write commands to send to the POKEY chip in their own programs. It's a program that lets you set the volume, frequency and waveform settings for each of the POKEY's four channels, and hear what kinds of sounds each combination makes, to help you make music and sound effects easier. Kind of a "what you hear is what you get" sort of thing. I call it "Prickle", because the chip is called POKEY, and GCC was going to make a low-cost sound chip called GUMBY for the Atari 7800, so I figured I'd stay within that character set. This was inspired by Random Terrain's Tone Toy 2008, which I find is a great help for programming the TIA's two sound generators. When I started to think about adding POKEY sound and music to the game I'm working on, I looked to see if there was something similar for programming the POKEY. I don't know if I didn't look hard enough, or if there really wasn't anything like that (unless Raster Music Tracker counts?), but I couldn't find anything that worked like Tone Toy, so I decided to make my own, and share it with you guys, hoping that you might be able to use it, as well. Here's a screenshot of the interface. It's not much, but since it's more of a utility, I figured I'd draw up something basic. I am thinking about making it look a bit more graphical in a future update, though. Basically, you have a context-sensitive help bar at the top of the screen, which tells you what each of the joystick movements (and the fire button) do, at any given moment. All four channels are laid out, for you to tinker around with, until you find a combination of settings that you like. It starts out with the word one highlighted, and if you move the joystick up or down from that point, you can switch between the other four channels, as well. With any of the channels by themselves highlighted, pushing the joystick to the left or right highlights one of the channel settings, like volume, frequency and the waveform ("square wave", "sawtooth wave", "pink noise", etc.). With any of these highlighted, moving the joystick up or down will change that setting. It'll increase or decrease the volume or frequency, and in the case of the waveform selector, change the type of waveform. If you hold the fire button down while you do this, it will slow down the increase or decrease, so you can have a bit finer control over what you want to change each setting to. And, when you push the joystick to the left or right, so only the channel number is highlighted, you can press the fire button to mute or unmute that channel. I figured that might be helpful, if you're trying to program in a two-, three- or four-part harmony with the other channels, and wanted to adjust each one, without hearing the others, and without needing to turn the volume all the way down on each channel, first. This is version 0.9, which I put the finishing touches on about an hour ago. It's version 0.9, because aside from the idea of making the interface look a bit more graphical (and because I've been itching to try 320B mode out), there's one thing I'm not sure how to do, that I'm pretty sure might come in handy: 16-bit mode. If anyone knows how to do this, and would like to help me add it in for version 1.0, that would be great. I'm going to release this under version 3 of the GNU GPL, but if that's not a good idea, I can change it. Here's the attached files: prickle.zip contains all of the source files 7800basic generated, along with the font I used, the A78 and BIN files. I figured I'd include everything, just in case. prickle-v09.a78 is the program itself. I tested it under MESS, both with and without the XM, and it worked both times. I haven't tried it in ProSystem, but if it doesn't work for you (or it complains of no POKEY chip), please let me know. prickle-v09.bin is a BIN file, because I wasn't sure if anyone would wanna try this on a Cuttle Cart 2, or CPUWIZ's MCP development cart, while they're programming. Maybe I'm just being silly. If you have any questions, the interface is too confusing, or you found a bug, please feel free to let me know. prickle.zip prickle-v09.a78 prickle-v09.bin
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Thanks to the efforts of foft (Mark Watson) and his Atari FPGA project, there is an open source FPGA pokey implementation available. As a little Easter bank holiday project, I thought I'd have a go at using it to make a dual pokey cartridge using a prototype of the Ultimate Cart as the starting point... Two of the fpga pins act as audio left and right, and I've hooked them up to a low pass filter on some perfboard, along with a 3.5mm stereo jack (which leads to my TV's audio input). It was pretty easy to make a firmware for the Ultimate Cart that included two of foft's pokeys, his DAC and a bit of VHDL to hook them up to the cartridge port. Then I modified TMC and RMTPlayer (with a hex editor) to output to the two pokeys at $D50x and $D58x. I guess technically this atari has 3 pokeys now (one inside, and two on the cartridge). The two pokeys use about 10% of the Ultimate Cart's FPGA, so there is plenty room for more. This was just for fun, and perhaps to show a little of what is possible with a FPGA hooked up to the cart port. To make a proper external dual pokey, we'd probably want to use ECI+Cart port, so the pokeys could appear in the correct places in the memory map. MP3 of TMC playing via the dual pokeys attached. SynthyGambol_vhdl_pokey.mp3
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So I pulled my 800XL and gear from storage. It'll boot up to READY prompt, play a cartridge game, and pass all self tests. However, I'm unable to use any of my peripherals (2x 810 drives - one Happy, 1010 recorder, and 1025 printer). Any help isolating the problem is greatly appreciated. Here's what I've tried so far... - CSAVE: No apparent issues trying to save "hello world" program to cassette. Beeps and starts spinning while recording. Back to READY prompt and recorder stops when done. - CLOAD: Error 138. Apparently didn't record. RETURN key properly starts recorder playing but no noises. - LIST/LOAD D1 & D2: Error 130. Nothing. Neither drive will spin when turning computer on. OPTION-on goes straight to test screen. Drive switches are set to 1 & 2, and have tried swapping them, plus each individually as D1. Note: Drives will power up with momentary busy light when computer is off. - LIST "P:": Error 138. Nothing. Printer head resets position when turning on computer. I've tried all peripherals daisy chained and individually, swapping out the IO cables with same results. I removed all socket chips from the motherboard, cleaned everything and no difference. Need a new POKEY chip? Anything else it could be? Thanks for the help guys!
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The very detailed and in-depth research of POKEY by @pavros, continuation of work of beloved @analmux et al. has been just published on atarionline.pl (http://atarionline.pl/v01/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1564612394&archive=&start_from=0&ucat=1&ct=nowinki). It was previously available in the latest issue of Atari Fan - twenty pages of dense wizardry, but now you can download the whole thing including demo programs and source code. Unfortunately the whole saga is in Polish language only, but we shall be able to help somehow if such a help is needed. The pack is here: http://atarionline.pl/pliki/pavros_znieksztalcenie_C.7z
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Given how much interest there is in POKEY music in other threads, I'm surprised I've never seen mention here on AtariAge about this album, released about 2 months ago. I first heard it referred to on a recent episode of the ANTIC Podcast. Forget the other threads and their technical programming nuances - this is just good chiptune magic right here, and recorded from with an 800XL. I've played this record dozens of times since I first heard it.
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Warlord - Pokey Nights (new 8-bit Atari music album)
armagon posted a topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Hey, I've released a new music album that contains 11 tracks written between 2010-2015 for Atari pokey sound chip (found in 8-bit Atari computers) with Raster Music Tracker. I thought this might interest a few folks here. Check it out: https://warlord.bandcamp.com/album/pokey-nights -
I've been meaning to start a topic about my abbuc hardware competition entry, a replacement for the Pokey chip. It's been mentioned in a couple of threads but I thought many people may have overlooked it. I tried to be sensitive to cost in my design, though once the full details are released (after competition result) it will be fun here to brainstorm ideas to make it even cheaper! Clearly there are still plenty of real pokey chips, however the supply is starting to become more limited and prices are on the increase. --- PokeyMAX Introduction The PokeyMAX is a complete replacement for the Pokey chip. It is derived from the work on the EclaireXL project, a complete FPGA based Atari 800XL clone. The intention is to build replacements for all of the Atari custom chips using this technology and Pokey has been built first. It can be used either to replace a broken/missing pokey, as a stereo upgrade, or just for fun! Features If pokey is socketed, zero wire installation (mono) Dual pokey mode Pins for 3 audio outputs (left channel/right channel/mixed) Small footprint, only a few mm larger than original IC Supports all features: 8x paddle inputs, IRQ, serial I/O, audio output, two tone mode, high pass filter and keyboard scan High level of compatibility Digital logic The PokeyMAX is built around the Altera MAX10 FPGA. This was chosen due to its integrated flash memory, power conversion, small size and low cost. The contained logic itself is described in VHDL and Verilog and then synthesized using the Quartus II software. Level conversion Most modern FPGAs no longer support 5V logic. While it is possible to find a few they are a vanishing breed. The MAX10 only supports up to 3.3V logic, so an IDT quickswitch level converter IC is used to connect to the high speed lines (A/D/IRQ/serial io etc) safely. Chip select Unfortunately I needed more level conversion lines than provided. TI came to the rescue with some 5V tolerant multi-function logic chips with which I was able to combined CS/!CS into one. Power The MAX10 requires a single 3.3V power supply, it then internally generates the rest of its supplies. This is very convenient, since often FPGAs require 3 or more different voltage levels. There is a switch mode regulator (LM3670) to convert from 5V to 3.3v in an efficient fashion. Paddles These are handled by charging a capacitor that we then check the level of using an LMV339. This is similar to the well-known LM339 comparator, except much smaller! The comparator is used since the level can be set very precisely rather than relying on when the FPGA detects a logic high. The level itself is set to 2.2v using the voltage divider on the right. It is also convenient since its open drain output means there are no level conversion issues. For the drain transistors, a 5V tolerant IO extender chip is used. The FPGA communicates with this over an I2C bus. Keyboard scan An IO extender chip drives the 6 keyboard lines and then reads the response. This is convenient since it only requires an I2C bus to the FPGA and the IC is much smaller than the level converters. JTAG The core may be upgraded or debugged using an Altera USB blaster connected here. Several of the JTAG pins are dual use and can be used as general IO. So we could for instance in future plug in i2c devices here or use for A5 (with external level converter) to allow quad pokey or sid etc. Audio filter The audio output uses a delta sigma dac. An RC circuit is used as a simple audio filter to smooth the output from this. There are four audio outputs, which are currently fed to pin 37 and 3 header pins (left/right and mixed). Note that the next stage much not draw a lot of current from the rc filter or it will cause distortion. A4 Pokey has 4 address pins (A0-A3). To make space for a 2nd pokey another address line is needed. For stereo connect to A4. Errata: Note that the "paddle capacitors" should not be populated and RA1 should be 0 ohm since these are already on the main board, this was a schematic error.
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So Given that there are a limited supply of pokey chips and that they mostly have to be taken from existing carts. There will be a time where they either get too cost prohibitive or push games like ballblazer to be rare. Given that wouldn't it make more sense to cannibalize one an create a pokey lock on cart like a game genie / Sonic and Knuckles. And carts that use the Pokey just lock on to the cart and gain the extra capabilities. Then the homebrew games don't need to worry about sourcing pokeys and all the other troubles and people that want the pokey can just use that one cart to boost the sound quality. What are your thoughts? Is this a dumb idea, do you think it is technically infeasible?- 22 replies
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I've been having a weird SIO problem that I'm hoping someone might have some insight into. The symptom of the problem is this. The Atari will attempt to read a sector (or some other SIO operation). There is about a 70% chance that it will succeed, but the other 30% it will sit for the timeout period (a few seconds) and then retry the sector read. I've seen a sector fail to read 3-4 times in a row before it succeeds and then a bunch will succeed in a row. The aspeqt log looks like this: [Disk 1] Get status. [Disk 1] Read sector 1 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 2 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 3 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 4 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 5 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 6 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 7 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 8 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 9 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 10 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 11 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 12 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 13 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 14 (128 bytes). <-- this is the failed command [Disk 1] Read sector 14 (128 bytes). [Disk 1] Read sector 15 (128 bytes). ...etc... So aspeqt isn't noticing a problem; rather the system just isn't seeing the sector come in for some reason. Here's the history of the problem. It all started when I dropped in a PAL ANTIC for playing some PAL games. At the time I figured the occasional glitch might be due to timing differences so I didn't think anything of it. After a few weeks of not using my system, I received and installed one of mega-hz's stereo boards (in the process I moved my OS ROM IC to the BASIC spot and removed BASIC, because in a 600XL the board doesn't quite fit). I booted up and everything seemed to work great on the first try, *except* that this SIO problem was still there and in fact was quite a bit worse than it was before! Figuring I had banjaxed something (SIO = POKEY = seems like it might have been related to the stereo board install), I tried reverting the upgrade and there was no change - the SIO problem was definitely still there. I swapped my ANTIC out for the original NTSC one again hoping that this would resolve the issue but it did not. I checked and rechecked the board for broken traces along every path I could find, even tried different POKEYs to no avail. Then I made a quite interesting discovery. If I boot in Aspeqt using the "boot XEX" feature, it consistently works fine (after it loads the initial few sectors containing the boot loader). This is interesting to me because the OS loads sectors at 19200 bps, but the Aspeqt XEX booter uses 57600 bps (I believe) to transmit the XEX data. So maybe the problem is actually in the OS ROM somehow, though I don't see how since it passes self-test which I think does a checksum test. My other thought is that maybe IRQs are not being handled right somehow since (I think) the OS SIO routine is IRQ-driven, whereas high-speed boot loaders aren't? Anyone have any thoughts about what I should try next? I was thinking about writing a test program pair for the atari and linux which transmits a data stream and checks for problems, and maybe just swapping ICs (SALLY gets a little warm but I think that's her normal behavior).
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Hi guys as per title I am after POKEY CHIPS C012294B-01 x2 of these. Can anyone help please? Cheers!
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A thought just occurred to me. When I was putting the Pokey code into Pac-Man 320 / Ms. Pac-Man 320, there was a bug which occurred when the Pokey was not activated; The 'Random' address would always return the same number. Could this be a quick / easy way to check for the existence of a Pokey at a specific address? I.E. read the Random address, say 5 times, and if the same value comes out all 5 times Pokey is not there. Is this reliable? -
Here's a video of it: I have the .RMT file zipped. Auf.zip
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I've tried to get a sort of PWM sound in a tracker. And I don't mean an accidental effect, but something more or less stable and predictable. The idea is a development of Raster's idea from his 'Delta' cover and 'C64 synth' instrument. Here is a mediocre example, but I hope you can hear and see what is going on the first channel. XEX included as well. KORTO.xex
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I made this .rmt file which is a WIP. It uses a filter for that weird instrument at the beginning. Does it sound better than the other conversion? sanxion.zip
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Does anyone know of a good source for high quality Electronica Club style music in Atari PoKey format? All I can find (on YT) are just music from games and demos. I'm looking for some long playing stuff. Good Dance / Trance (or whatever they call it now) music. BTW, this was asked of me by a pretty female, so it's rather important to me. Emkay, this is your opportunity to shine. [High quality] SID emulation stuff is just fine. Whatever sounds good (especially to her) will make me happy. I want to introduce her to the pleasure of Atari (instead of the ugly commie)... Thanks in advance. If we can compile enough of this in one place, it may be possible to start a club and create a following, but we will need a very large playlist. Just an idea... Form one PoKey fan to another. Imagine a worldwide PoKey dance club franchise.
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How do I go about playing POKEY chiptune on a real Atari? I've heard that you can convert .sap to .xex and then execute it somehow, but when I tried it all I got were flickering lines on my screen. Any advice?
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I've been REALLY curious about the tap locations for each of the polynomial counters. I already know these for the 5-bit poly counter, which are bits 3 and 5 If anyone knows what these polynomial tap locations are, let me know please.
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Another cover, this time from Sega Megadrive's Sonic the Hedgehog. Uses stereo POKEY, doublespeed player routine. RMT, SAP and XEX files attached. https://soundcloud.com/pseudografx/sonic-the-hedgehog-green-hill-zone-pokey-cover GreenHill.zip- 10 replies
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Hi all, I've been browsing the Atariage forums for a long time now and with help from a lot of great posts I've modded and resurrected quite a few Atari systems. Thank you, to all of the knowledgeable and friendly people who post here. I finally came up against some issues that I haven't been able to sort out by searching the forums. I'll start out by telling everybody about the system I have. It is a 4 port 5200, (the non VCS adapter compatible one). I bought it untested from ebay with 3 games and 4 controllers, but no power supply or switchbox. I bought an original 4 port power supply and did the power mod to eliminate the need for the all in one switchbox, (thank you Mitch and CPUWIZ). I am using the original soldered on RF cable to connect the 5200 to my TV, (I'll likely do the video mod after I sort out the issues I'm having). I've cleaned up 2 of the controllers and the buttons are working good. The joysticks were too, but that's changed. Anyhow after I completed the power mod and hooked the 5200 to my TV it looked and sounded great, no problems with any of the games I tried. However some of the controller inputs weren't reading, but the system seemed to be working great otherwise. After a while thought a new problem started. The system would not turn off with the power button and I started getting graphical errors with lockups. The power is on as soon as I plug it in, without even pressing the power button. After reading a few posts here it seemed that I my power problem and graphics troubles were likely due to a bad 4013 flip flop. I bought a pack of 25 and have tried about half of them - no change, the problems remain. As a matter of fact even without a 4013 socketed the 5200 powers on as soon as I plug it in and will on turn off. I also still get graphical corruption and lockups after a short time too. Aside from changing out the 4013 I've also tested the power switch for continuity. It has continuity when the button is pushed and none when it isn't, so the button isn't the problem. This has me really stumped, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. On to problem 2 - the controller input issue. As mentioned I've cleaned and got working 2 of the controllers. So after some searching of the posts it seemed likely that my problem was due to faulty CD4052 ICs. I bought a pack of 25 and replaced the 5 that are on the board. Success! All of the buttons now work as they should. However I am having trouble with the joysticks. The joysticks worked fine initially, before I changed the CD4052s, but started to give me trouble before I did the swap and it didn't go away with the swap. As soon as I start any game it acts like the joystick is being pushed all the way down and to the right. This happens even if the joystick is centered and does not change even if I move the stick all the way up and to the left, or any other direction for that matter. It's the same with both controllers and the same with both ports 1 and 2, I have not tried ports 3 or 4. More reading on the forums is leading me to suspect I've got a fault Pokey chip. The Pokey looks slightly discolored around the edges. I don't have another to swap out, yet, but that is what I plan on trying next. I've also cleaned the pins in all 4 or the ports. Again any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I do own a multi-meter and a decent soldering iron, (which I am pretty good at using). I also got really lucky with the board revision in my 5200, every IC on the board is socketed, so no de-soldering required to swap out chips. This is the first 5200 I've owned and I've got a lot of great games that I want to start playing. I know some of you guys have seen it all with these systems, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to sort it out with your help. Thanks in advance.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-mntFO3gPg This was fun to do.
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As a disclaimer I should say upfront that I won't be in a position to purchase the chips/games until February 1st, but I did want to get the word out in advance in case someone wouldn't mind setting them aside for me. I'm planning on picking up two Atari 7800 homebrew games next month but both will require that I supply the POKEY chips needed for them, so if anyone happens to have a couple spare POKEY chips or Ballblazer carts with cruddy condition labels that they wouldn't mind parting with I could sure use them. I'm not sure exactly what the chips or rough condition Ballblazer carts go for price wise, so I'm open to negotiation on the price. PayPal payment is preferred but I can send a money order through the mail if the seller isn't keen on PayPal. Thanks much and just shoot me a PM if you happen to have what I'm looking for and wouldn't mind setting it aside for me until February.
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Hello! I want to share some ATARI POKEY I made. These are both originals and covers, along with some behind the scenes. So, without further ado, I'm going to leaving this link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgwcI3ATf3U&list=PLptR0gr8Js-44DoEDc_ZvYY6wlQWZZbcC Please, enjoy! I'm also looking forward to hearing from you all!
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Hi Guys! Does anyone know where I can buy a Harmony-like or Everdrive-like SD Cartridge for the Atari 7800 with a Pokey chip or who can make one if I sent them a Pokey chip? Thanks! My email is nobtis5@yahoo.com
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