is atari capable of playing MP3 files or using a CD as an ide drive?

[+rockdoc2010]

I am building a "laptop" atari that will have a portable dvd player installed so i can watch a dvd when i am not running the computer. Although this unit does not have an ide interface, my unit will play an mp3 disk or photos but i am interested in if it is possible to drive a cd player as a storage medium for a future project. I would suspect that the driver would be the biggest problem.

 

Douglas

[flashjazzcat]

http://www.mathyvannisselroy.nl/boot%20cd.htm

 

http://drac030.krap.pl/en-kmkjz-info.php

[Thorsten Günther]

And regarding MP3s: no, not by a wide margin. the only Atari computer capable of MP3 playback is the Falcon030, and juste barely. Relying on a CPU alone, no computer prior to the Intel Pentium generation will playback MP3s with the bit rates that are standard today. Atari 8-Bit computers are only capable of playing chip tunes and coarse sound samples (without any other compression than their bit rate and resolution), cf. Castle Wolfenstein.

[ryanmercer]

I'd just add an rPi and a switch to toggle the display from the atari to the rPi, you add a small bit of hardware and add a ton more features, especially if you make the rPi's ports accessible you could play video from USB drives too.

[emkay]

Actually , if you use a programmable MP3 player, you could use a program that is able to control the available content. But the A8 has no way to decode an replay MP3 in realtime.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

the A8 cannot play MP3 files. But, errrm, well, [nerd mode on] you could use an SD/micro-SD-Cassette adapter, put the SD/micro-SD card with MP3 files into the adapter, put the "cassette" into the Atari data-recorder and playback your MP3 files there. Will surely sound horrible, but you will hear MP3 sound coming from your A8... e.g. with this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Player-Cassette-Adapter-Reader/dp/B00CK5L494/ref=sr_1_52?ie=UTF8&qid=1421450132&sr=8-52&keywords=MP3-Cassette

[nerd mode off]

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

As far as I know, most DVD players (either IDE or SCSI) don't have a separate video connector. There is no video hardware inside, data is transferred to the computer via either IDE or SCSI bus.

 

But they do have a separate sound connector, so you can play music CD's (not MP3) from your Atari. I've done it, all you need is a BlackBox and TurboBASIC (plus an optical drive and some existing software). Check out this page: http://www.mathyvannisselroy.nl/aspi.htm

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

PS the C64 guys have a cartridge that will play MP3 files...

 

 

[snicklin]

I guess it would be able to play an MP3 if it was of an extreeeeeeeeemely low bitrate.

[kogden]

The C64 cartridge probably has an MP3 decoder IC in it. A PBI MP3 decoder could probably be made fairly easily. Kinda cheating though.

 

I've seen Sun SPARCstations that can't decode MP3's in real time. A 100MHz Pentium really struggled if you tried to multitask while playing MP3's.

 

A 6502 is unlikely to be able to pull it off. MOD files are probably as close as you'd get.

[+rockdoc2010]

Well I am going to install the speakers that came with the portable dvd player otherwize I wouldnt be able to watch a dvd..

the dvd player would simply be installed within the case with the A8, but i want to use those speakers for A8 output as well. I have the simple stereo mod and i am thinking of hooking up the dvd output audio/as well as A8 audio to the internal speakers.

 

I guess i should have restated my question..

 

it should have been..

 

can a cd drive be used as a data storage that can be accesed by A8?

 

my dvd player can read pics and music but i think programs are probably not doable

 

Douglas

[ryanmercer]

Well I am going to install the speakers that came with the portable dvd player otherwize I wouldnt be able to watch a dvd..

the dvd player would simply be installed within the case with the A8, but i want to use those speakers for A8 output as well. I have the simple stereo mod and i am thinking of hooking up the dvd output audio/as well as A8 audio to the internal speakers.

 

I guess i should have restated my question..

 

it should have been..

 

can a cd drive be used as a data storage that can be accesed by A8?

 

my dvd player can read pics and music but i think programs are probably not doable

 

Douglas

 

 

I'm telling you, put a raspberry Pi in there. It will take up a tiny bit of space, make a little drawer for a small travel mouse and you can use the rPi for mp3 visa usb as well as networking and a linux install, use it as a full computer if you take an external keyboard with you wherever. It will take less room than a cd drive. Better yet, add the rPI then a small drawer for one of these tiny keyboards with trackpad and it is STILL less space and weight than a cd drive and now you have a fully functional modern computer with HDMI out, your portable DVD player and an A8 computer.

[HiassofT]

Back in the late 1990ies there were some projects to hook up an MP3 decoder chip to an otherwise underpowered computer and thus be able to play MP3s.

 

One of these projects was "PUMP" (parallel universal mp3 player), published by the German computer magazine c't (most of the links on these pages are dead by now, use archive.org to retrieve them and google translate if you don't speak german):

http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Mucken-statt-drucken-287008.html

http://www.segor.de/L1Bausaetze/mp3.shtml

 

This kit used a (now long obsolete) Micronas MAS3507D MP3 decoder chip, had a small Atmel, IIRC for buffering data and controlling a display and some buttons, and connected to a standard parallel printer port.

 

Back then I bought the kit, even hacked a little bit on the Atmel code, and used it for a short while with an old 386 PC (which was loud and heavy, so I didn't use it too much). IIRC you could also connect it to an Atari ST or Amiga - but I can't remember if there was more than some proof-of-concept software for these platforms.

 

A few years ago I thought about hooking the MAS3507D up to an Atari. But I dropped that idea for various reasons: IIRC the chip was already out of production (and it also wasn't really cheap when it was still available, haven't looked for alternatives though), but most important I didn't see any real benefit in doing this:

 

The storage space required for MP3s and the available capacity and bandwidth of Atari storage devices don't fit together that well. We might just be able to play some crappy 64kbit/sec MP3s via SIO, but on a standard DD disk there's only space for some 20 seconds.

 

Sure, HDD/CF adapters might give you enough bandwidth for 128-320kbit/sec, but with the 16MB/32MB filesystem limit you'll only be able to store 1-4 song on a partition. I usually encode my MP3s with (up to) 320kbit VBR, a single CD thus needs some 70-140MB.

 

Well, yes, you could read the files directly from a FAT32 partition but what's the point? That's a very specialized setup with little practical use. Sure, it would have been fun to do it, just for the fun in it. But would I actually use it? I guess no.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[+David_P]

There are Arduino MP3 playback devices on eBay for under $5 (shipped).

 

For example: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 141211013637

[Mathy]

Hello rockdoc2010

 

can a cd drive be used as a data storage that can be accesed by A8?

 

my dvd player can read pics and music but i think programs are probably not doable

 

Yes, you can use a CD or DVD as a data storage and access it from the Atari 8 bit. I've been there and have done that.

 

You can not store data from the Atari directly to an optical drive. No one has written the software yet. And even with the software "buffer underrun protection" probably only goes so far. CD burners can be found with either IDE or SCSI, but DVD burners are usually only available with IDE. And those with SCSI are very expensive.

 

What you can do, is read data from an optical disk. You can use disks for Mac or PC and read the data that's on the disk. But you can also burn disks on a (Mac or) PC in such a manor, that the Atari can be booted from a CD or DVD. (Which reminds me, that we still need to compiler Hias' software for the Mac)

 

Playing music from a CD is no problem.

 

The links to the software you needed have already been posted in this thread.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

[Mathy]

Hello kogden

 

The C64 cartridge probably has an MP3 decoder IC in it.

 

It has!

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[Lynxpro]

The C64 cartridge probably has an MP3 decoder IC in it. A PBI MP3 decoder could probably be made fairly easily. Kinda cheating though.

 

I've seen Sun SPARCstations that can't decode MP3's in real time. A 100MHz Pentium really struggled if you tried to multitask while playing MP3's.

 

A 6502 is unlikely to be able to pull it off. MOD files are probably as close as you'd get.

 

 

Hook up a Motorola 56K DSP to PBI or SIO, write a driver for it, and bam, you'll have MP3 and AAC playing on an A8. The 56K DSP was famously in the NeXT and the Atari Falcon030, and last time I checked, Apple was [still] using them in their iPod Shuffles a few years ago.

 

Acquiring a bunch of discarded iPod Shuffles would be a great way to source a bunch of 56K DSPs. I'm really surprised nobody's doing that on the ST side of things…to give STs the audio of the Falcon030, so to speak.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Lynxpro

[Joey Z]

 

 

Hook up a Motorola 56K DSP to PBI or SIO, write a driver for it, and bam, you'll have MP3 and AAC playing on an A8. The 56K DSP was famously in the NeXT and the Atari Falcon030, and last time I checked, Apple was [still] using them in their iPod Shuffles a few years ago.

 

Acquiring a bunch of discarded iPod Shuffles would be a great way to source a bunch of 56K DSPs. I'm really surprised nobody's doing that on the ST side of things…to give STs the audio of the Falcon030, so to speak.

is that a true 56000 though? As in, a separate chip? or is it some SOC that includes 56K compatibility? that's the real question here.

[Lynxpro]

is that a true 56000 though? As in, a separate chip? or is it some SOC that includes 56K compatibility? that's the real question here.

 

Apparently, it's a Motorola 56k DSP Core used in SigmaTel STMP3520s that are/were used in the iPod Shuffle, Cowon iAudio, and Creative Zeno Nanos. That's not emulation so it still counts as being real.

[Joey Z]

 

Apparently, it's a Motorola 56k DSP Core used in SigmaTel STMP3520s that are/were used in the iPod Shuffle, Cowon iAudio, and Creative Zeno Nanos. That's not emulation so it still counts as being real.

But if it's not a separate chip, then you can't really use it in an ST and be compatible with the falcon implementation, that's my point. There's not a way to expose the 56000 to the outside in a way that would be compatible. Using it in an ST was kind of your original point (one of them anyway), and this is why they haven't done it. That's all I'm saying.

[Lynxpro]

But if it's not a separate chip, then you can't really use it in an ST and be compatible with the falcon implementation, that's my point. There's not a way to expose the 56000 to the outside in a way that would be compatible. Using it in an ST was kind of your original point (one of them anyway), and this is why they haven't done it. That's all I'm saying.

 

I don't think that's the reason why it hasn't been done. Since it has a 56K DSP core to it, there could be a patch written that only uses the original 56K DSP features.

 

There's a lot of people in this scene who would prefer to use ARM/PIC/FPGA solutions instead of sourcing used equipment and adapting it. I also think a lot of the ST people are more "purist" about hardware than the enthusiasts on the A8 side.

[Joey Z]

 

I don't think that's the reason why it hasn't been done. Since it has a 56K DSP core to it, there could be a patch written that only uses the original 56K DSP features.

 

There's a lot of people in this scene who would prefer to use ARM/PIC/FPGA solutions instead of sourcing used equipment and adapting it. I also think a lot of the ST people are more "purist" about hardware than the enthusiasts on the A8 side.

well, it could be done, sure, but I don't think there'd be a way to make it compatible with the falcon, so you would end up having to rewrite all the software for the new design. Not so much a why hasn't it been done so much as a why it can't be done. Besides, they still sell MC56K derivatives, it'd probably be easier to use one of those than rework a SOC just to expose the 56K that's in it.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Joey Z

[Lynxpro]

well, it could be done, sure, but I don't think there'd be a way to make it compatible with the falcon, so you would end up having to rewrite all the software for the new design. Not so much a why hasn't it been done so much as a why it can't be done. Besides, they still sell MC56K derivatives, it'd probably be easier to use one of those than rework a SOC just to expose the 56K that's in it.

 

True, but would those derivatives be cheaper than discarded iPod Shuffles?

 

This is all hypothetical, of course.

[ctirad]

Hook up a Motorola 56K DSP to PBI or SIO, write a driver for it, and bam, you'll have MP3 and AAC playing on an A8.

This is waaay too complicated. There are chips on the market, that can do mp3, Ogg, Flac, wavetable MIDI synth etc. out of the box. You need only to feed it with a corect stream and you ill get audio on the output. But why?

[FifthPlayer]

Besides the C= 64, The Apple II also has an MP3 card available:

 

http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=21

 

It has an onboard DSP and plays files off a mounted flash drive. So it sidesteps the issues with limited storage space on 8-bit devices.

 

An Atari version of this idea could connect via SIO, have its own SD slot, and pump the audio through the SIO audio line (what the cassette player used to play cassette audio through the Atari).

Edited January 18, 2015 by FifthPlayer

[ctirad]

What is the point of listening music through a lofi mono SIO audio? If you want that, just connect your phone or any audio player to SIO audio in and listen. Or use an cassete adaptor with line or BT in in your datarecorder.