Covox/Stereo POKEY demos?

[mimo]

Looking for some good Covox and Stereo POKEY demos to show off the Atari 8bit computer at a Retro meeting this weekend.

If anyone can point me to some files that would be great

 

Thanks

[+Stephen]

Looking for some good Covox and Stereo POKEY demos to show off the Atari 8bit computer at a Retro meeting this weekend.

If anyone can point me to some files that would be great

 

Thanks

For starters, you can try here for a few .neo files. Use these with Neo Tracker (a great tracker written which supports single pokey, double pokey, and covox). Inertia 4.5 is another great MOD player with better sound quality than Neo Tracker, but that's because it is just a player.

 

Stephen Anderson

[atariksi]

Looking for some good Covox and Stereo POKEY demos to show off the Atari 8bit computer at a Retro meeting this weekend.

If anyone can point me to some files that would be great

 

Thanks

 

I don't see how using Covox hardware is going to show off Atari 8-bit computer. I used to have some Covox hardware that did voice recognition but someone trashed it.

[+Stephen]

Looking for some good Covox and Stereo POKEY demos to show off the Atari 8bit computer at a Retro meeting this weekend.

If anyone can point me to some files that would be great

 

Thanks

 

I don't see how using Covox hardware is going to show off Atari 8-bit computer. I used to have some Covox hardware that did voice recognition but someone trashed it.

Wrong Covox - this one is the Polish device. It's a 4-channel 8-bit DAC. Using NeoTracker or Inertia to play MOD files on the little Atari is a rpetty cool way to get attention at a demo.

 

Stephen Anderson

[atariksi]

Looking for some good Covox and Stereo POKEY demos to show off the Atari 8bit computer at a Retro meeting this weekend.

If anyone can point me to some files that would be great

 

Thanks

 

I don't see how using Covox hardware is going to show off Atari 8-bit computer. I used to have some Covox hardware that did voice recognition but someone trashed it.

Wrong Covox - this one is the Polish device. It's a 4-channel 8-bit DAC. Using NeoTracker or Inertia to play MOD files on the little Atari is a rpetty cool way to get attention at a demo.

 

Stephen Anderson

 

But not as good as doing it with standard A8 hardware to show off A8.

[+Stephen]

*** SNIP ***

 

But not as good as doing it with standard A8 hardware to show off A8.

True, but NeoTracker does work with a PoKey (or two). It's an all around great example of what the Atari can do, both in stock form, and expanded. Definite kudos to the coders.

 

Stephen Anderson

[atariksi]

*** SNIP ***

 

But not as good as doing it with standard A8 hardware to show off A8.

True, but NeoTracker does work with a PoKey (or two). It's an all around great example of what the Atari can do, both in stock form, and expanded. Definite kudos to the coders.

 

Stephen Anderson

 

Too bad it didn't become a standard feature.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Alright,

 

some months ago I bought some of the simple-stereo-upgrades by Candle and some weeks ago a friend installed them for me. In the past I did not collect any stereo-programs because they were stereo (in a DIR or Subdir named stereo), since I could only listen to mono anyway...

 

Now I put together some ATR images and copied them into a subdir, but of course this is only a beginning and there are still dozens of programs missing there. The same is true for the Covox enhancement, but there it was/is much easier because a) only MOD players exist and b) only three programs do exist that use Covox afaik (Inertia and Protracker which play MOD files and Neotracker which plays converted MOD files named NEO).

 

Anyways, attached you will find what I have collected so far - often I only copied some excerpts of my full collection, since I had many more sound files for example than other programs (e.g. I copied only two images of AMS sound files, not my whole collection of AMS soundfiles, copied only two images of NEO soundfiles, not the whole collection, etc.)...

 

Some instructions for the programs and/or tools you will find in the attachments:

 

- DOS: most of the time I used Turbo-DOS XL/XE by Reitershan, it can load BAS and COM files:

 

a) BAS files: type in BON and press Return, then type in CAR LOAD"D:FILENAME.BAS" or CAR RUN"D:FILENAME.BAS" to load an Atari Basic file (if the file is listed, type in CAR ENTER"D:FILENAME.LST")

 

b) ML files: type in BOF and then LOA FILENAME.COM or shorter LOA FILENAME.*

or LOA *.COM or LOA FIL*.* or LOA FIL- (where - is the same as *.*) or even shorter

F Shift-Return (type the first letter(s) of the filename, then hold Shift and press Return, TurboDOS will add the rest of the filename and the COM extender and load the file; if there are many files with the same letter(s), TurboDOS will ask which one to load)

 

- TXT: TurboDOS can display ATASCII text files, use TYP FIL- to display a text file (type in HEL or press the HELP key to see all available commands in TurboDOS XL/XE)

- TUR: Turbo Basic XL files, load TB XL first, then load these files...

- NEO: Neotracker files, you have to load Neotracker first...

 

- Neotracker: the disk contains versions 1.6 of Neotracker / Installer and version 1.8 of the Installer. With the installer you can setup Neotracker to use Pokey (4Bit) or Covox (8bit) for playback and the amount of XRAM available. When I did not have Covox I used version 1.6 and setup a 576k and a 128k version of neotracker playing with Pokey (these are the ones you find on that image). The version 1.8 seems to work best (or only) with simple-stereo by Candle, so I renamed it to SSTEONEO.COM and err, I did not setup any Neotracker with it yet, so you have to do that yourself...

 

- Gumby*.ATR: Contains the original article by Chuck Steinman on how to upgrade your Atari with a second Pokey (Gumby) as well as some more articles and descriptions / pictures / schematics from Mega-Magazine on that topic (e.g. how to add a stereo-mono switch, etc.). Just load DETSTEO.COM and TESTSTEO.COM to detect/test your stereo equipped Atari. You will also find TB XL patch-programs for Softsynth and World of Wonders, so that they will play in stereo. And there are more programs, just explore the disks / images...

 

- MOD: Amiga or ST MOD files, use Inertia or Protracker to play them back or use Neotracker to convert them to 8bit stereo and save them in NEO format. (You could also convert the MOD files into MD8 format, but MD8 is only 8Bit mono.)

 

Note: Afaik all Covox programs (Inertia, Protracker, Neotracker/Installer) require XRAM, thus a minimum of 128k RAM is required for them.

 

Enough for now. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions... -Andreas Koch.

Edited November 15, 2009 by CharlieChaplin

[Beetle]

Many demos support dual Pokey setups by default. The most use only 4 channels

to have backwards compatibility to stock XL/XE. Here the ones that came to mind first.

There are a lot more ones!

 

• 
   
  
• Base33
  
• Self Demo
  
• The Shrine
  
• Unfused
  
• Numen
  
• Who lost the wallet
  
• Forsaken Love
  
• Trip 6
  
• Back 2 Life 2
  
• Bash
  
• Unplugged
  
• Sound of Silence (a Music disk series)
  

 

Also a lot of games support Stereo. I think the most new games do.

I am not into games that much - I'm sure there are also a lot more

games that use Stereo, if available.

 

• 
   
  
• Yoomp!
  
• Nibbly
  
• Commando+
  
• Bomb Jack (iirc)
  
• Speed Up
  
• Crownland
  
• Tempest xtreem
   
  

 

For the coders, its not hard to use both pokeys. And if you use

ch 1+2 on pokey a and 2+3 on pokey b - if an a8 is stock, still both

channels reach the ear, with no change to the code.

 

I also patched Zybex to play its main tune Stereo.

Someone wants the binary?

Edited November 15, 2009 by Beetle

[spookt]

Just wanted to say that I finally got round to installing my stereo board today after it sat on the shelf for a year! No Covox on this one just 2 Pokeys. Thanks for the ATRs CC - I've had some fun with them this afternoon.

 

Beetle - thanks for the recommendations demo/game wise, alas I still can't run Numen since I have only 256Kb not 320 I'd love to try your patched Zybex if you would like to post it?

 

Any more stereo recommendations?

[_Fandal_]

Just wanted to say that I finally got round to installing my stereo board today after it sat on the shelf for a year! No Covox on this one just 2 Pokeys. Thanks for the ATRs CC - I've had some fun with them this afternoon.

 

Beetle - thanks for the recommendations demo/game wise, alas I still can't run Numen since I have only 256Kb not 320 I'd love to try your patched Zybex if you would like to post it?

 

Any more stereo recommendations?

 

Stereo: http://atari.fandal.cz/search.php?search=stereo&butt_details_x=x

 

Covox: http://atari.fandal.cz/search.php?search=covox&butt_details_x=x

 

F.

[spookt]

Thanks Fandal. Now why didn't I think of that

 

Should be plenty there to keep my going awhile

Edited January 9, 2010 by spookt