Is the SID cartridge project dead?

[+Larry]

The title says most of it. It's been suggested that it has died for lack of interest. But I never remember seeing any pre-order interest poll or such.

 

My only concern (FWIW) is IF it is not possible to develop a program to translate the original SID files to a format acceptable by the Atari, then we are basically in a similar position to the VBXE -- nice device, but little usable software to exploit its features. I know very little about music, but it seems that a translator is a reasonable proposition. (?)

 

Incidently, lack of SID's would not seem to be an issue. There is a replacement device called "SwinSID" that should work. The cart might have to have a cut-out due to thickness. Note that "SwinSID" has evolved to the current "Nano SwinSID" which is reported to be about the same size as a real 28-pin SID, but (of course) thicker. I've also read that it can be set to be like a 6581 or a 8580.

 

SwinSID:

http://retro-donald....&products_id=90

 

-Larry

[candle]

i was told, that the author of this project has a stock of 50 SID chips that would be sold together with cartridge, so at least 50 carts can be made if there is any intrest in this

[+Stephen]

Raises hand for one.

[Rybags]

I'd be in too if the price is right.

 

I'd not worry about getting song executables, no doubt the most popular Sid tunes would be converted within weeks, even if it meant hacking by hand.

[+Larry]

Hi Sebastian-

 

Let's approach this from a slightly different angle. How many cartridges would need to be purchased in order to get this off the ground? Is there a "final board" design that needs prototyping? I can think of a bunch of questions, so I'll PM you.

 

-Larry

[spookt]

I'd probably grab one at the right price.

[snicklin]

I'd definitely have one at the right price too.

[+Philsan]

If I want to hear SID, I use one of my C64s, if I want better graphics, I use one of my Amigas.

 

That said, I am amazed by those nice projects made by smart people so I think I would buy a SID cart...

[mimo]

If candle is in charge I would buy one, payment in advance. If its anyone else, then I would pay.when they are ready to ship

[JohnBuell]

I think I'd rather have Stereo or Quad POKEYs than SID.

[twh/f2]

I definitively would have one SID cart.

 

At the Fujiama party I checked out one working SID cart together with 505. We tested a couple of SID files and it was really a great experience.

[sack-c0s]

goatTracker is open source, so maybe fixing that up would work?

 

It would just be minor surgery on a windows editor (mostly just the warning stuff for selecting load addressses and zeropage usage) and the register addresses in the playroutine (and maybe the frequency tables? Not sure about the clocking). That way people could edit their own tunes comfortably, and any existing workfiles could just be saved out for the atari so they can be reused.

[dragos]

im in for one

[venom4728a]

I would buy one also.

[+CharlieChaplin]

I want one or two...

[seban]

Hi!

 

I'm the Seban/Slight (Sebastian Igielski) and I'm the author of the first version of SID cartridge for 8-bit Atari. The first several pieces was done as a prototype version, and all worked fine. But due to high cost of components there will be second generation of this project. It will be completely redesigned to reduce total cost of BoM. The first old version was based on PIC18 MCU and some external logic to handle two asynchronous clocks (SID clock and Atari clock). As mentioned Candle, at this moment I have about of 50pcs of original SID8580 chips, and that can be used do make commercial version of Slight SID Cartridge. So, if you would be interested in this product, I can seriously think about the production of more Slight-SID cartridges. The first prototype version look like this:

 

 

 

 

with greetings

Sebastian

[venom4728a]

Look great Seban, I am in for one!

 

Robert

[twh/f2]

Hi Seban, I can only repeat my wish. I would buy one or two.

I played around with one of the carts as seen in the pictures above and it was a real nice excperience. I only wished the audio signal could be mixed with the Atari line out .. But I'm afraid that is a whole different thing which can not be simply done just by plugin in a cartridge.

[seban]

Hi!

 

The second version of Slight-SID will have a line-in You can connect any external signal, such as audio-out of POKEY. You can use internal SID filters for external audio processing. In fact, the first version was a substitute for line-in, but it was too poorly protected (ESD), so I decided not to connect the first prototype.

 

with greetings

Sebastian

[visionik]

I'd be in for two.

[+Larry]

I'm in for one!

Larry

[+Philsan]

A already written 5 months ago, one for me please!

[mimo]

I still want one

[+Firedawg]

Hello Seban, I would be interested in one.

 

Mike

[sack-c0s]

A mixed sound signal would be great if at all possible - the SID and the POKEY kind of complement each other and it'd be nice to hear what kind of music you'd end up with.

 

Failing that - SID for music and POKEY for effects, because that would be each chip doing what they do best and if you didn't have a SID cart you'd still get effects ingame so it wouldn't be a total disappointment...