SIO audio in

[gozar]

What did the SIO audio in do? Was it just used for music tracks when loading cassette software?

 

Could it be used to create an SIO sound card?

[Rybags]

The audio is mixed with that from Pokey and GTIA (XL/XE) - no software control over level or anything.

Most common use was for audio track from tape, yes.

 

There are addons that used it, from memory Alien Systems Voice Box (or similar name). SIO crosstalk causes some unwanted noise over the audio in (noticable particularly on tape/disk operations in quiet mode).

 

A SIO sound card possible for sure. Of course problems being as mentioned unwanted SIO noise which would especially be a problem if SIO is used to issue commands.

 

Alternative to using SIO for sound commands could be joystick port or PBI but it makes for more clutter. PBI also has audio input, so logically if that route was chosen the whole deal could be done on PBI.

 

Another alternative might be something with sufficient buffer that much of the SIO command could be done in one big block (e.g. music playing) then intermittent commands e.g. sound effects could be done with small blocks of data.

[BillC]

What did the SIO audio in do? Was it just used for music tracks when loading cassette software?

 

Could it be used to create an SIO sound card?

Not just music while loading, IIRC Moonbase IO has narration periodically during the game. Even the disc based version is supposed to use the tape drive for the narration.

[Chilly Willy]

Most educational cassettes would stream (text) video from the data channel while the audio channel played the teacher's lecture. So you'd see chemical formulas and such on the display while the teacher talked about them. It was an ingenious method of taking advantage of stereo audio cassettes on the computer.

[Bryan]

the Indus GT makes its beep noises through it as well.

[AtariNerd]

May not be practical or even desired from a purists perspective, but I wonder if it would be posible to create a controller for a CD/DVD player that coulkd plug into the SIO port. Actually, now that I think about it, I think Curt revealed that there was a proposal to use a CD ROM with the 8-bit at one time - 64K per track, per revolution, regardless of length, I think it was. A lot of waste, but still megabytes of space.

[Mathy]

Hello AtariNerd

 

Unfortunately, there's no way to get Audio via SCSI and the BlackBox to AUDIO IN, but I've used my Atari to control a CD/DVD drive via my BlackBox more then enough times. Here's some info. But that's for when you want to boot software from an optical device. If you want to use music CD's (or have a short look at what's on a data CD), you might want to look at this page for the software you'll need.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS two quotes from my site: "BTW the first Atari 8 bit boot CD was created, by me, on the 27th of september 2004." and "I created a Compact Disk that contains all the ABBUC magazines (78, most double sided), all the ABBUC special magazins that are not copy protected (34, all double sided, except for the last one which is four sided), all the ABBUC PD disks that can be turned into ATRs (over 650 "disks", going from single to eightteen sided) plus 142 ATR's (some, by accident, got in twice, so there should have been less) AMC disks/disksides. Most of these are single or enhanced density, so you'll need twice as much space on a disk, be it CD, DVD or harddisk. The CD has 330 MB on it. Using 17 partition lists. It took 29 sheets of paper to print all of that out." Maybe I should burn a new CD, as the ABBUC released ABBUC Magazin 115 and Special Magazin 47 already. And the PD collection of the ABBUC grew by 150 "disks".

Edited January 16, 2014 by Mathy