Starpath supercharger games on vinyl.

[goriddle]

Just for the hell of it, I recently had a local record shop cut a copy of Dragonstomper on 10" vinyl from the original cassette. It was cut on a record lathe at 33 rpm. It worked like I expected. I was able to play the game just fine. I realize there is no viable reason for this, but it's pretty damn neat. Has anyone heard of this being done before? Have any other types of games been played from record album?

[Tinman]

I've never heard of it being done, but there's no real reason why it wouldn't work. It's just an audio file. They're on CD and WAV and MP3, so vinyl or another analog format should work fine, as long as the audio quality doesn't get reduced too much.

[+McCallister]

I haven't heard of this being done before, but it's totally cool that one did.

[Trinity]

You should make a YouTube video of that!

[Jinroh]

Man that's so rad! I love Dragon Stomper! Great way to deal with demagnetization of your cassette in a classic way.

[Dauber]

Just wait until after a few plays and your stylus starts to put nicks and cuts in the groove. (Unless you have one of those laser record players...)

[Mr SQL]

Awesome! I remember a vinyl "floppy" record full of programs being included in one of the computer mags bitd and advertised in them as well.

[Tempest]

Awesome! I remember a vinyl "floppy" record full of programs being included in one of the computer mags bitd and advertised in them as well.

Yeah they did that for some early Apple II programs. Didn't last too long though.

[hizzy]

As A vinyl collector, I love this idea!

[sprazzi]

In the UK back in the '80's some bands put Sinclair Zx Spectrum games on vinyl records....

from wikipedia:

 

Spectrum software in popular music

A few pop musicians included Sinclair programs on their records. The Buzzcocks front man, Pete Shelly, put a Spectrum program including lyrics and other information as the last track on his XL-1 album. The punk band Inner City Unit put a Spectrum database of band information on their 1984 release, 'New Anatomy'. Also in 1984, the Thompson Twins released a game on vinyl.^[16]The Freshies had a brief flirtation with fame and Spectrum games, and the Aphex Twin included various loading noises on his Richard D. James album in 1996—most notably part of the loading screen from Sabre Wulf on Carn Marth. Shakin' Stevens included his Shaky Game at the end of his The Bop Won't Stop album. The aim of the game was to guide your character around a maze, while avoiding bats. Upon completion your score would be given in terms of a rank of disc, e.g. "gold" or "platinum". The game had a minor connection with one of his tracks, It's Late. Scottish band Urusei Yatsura included a Spectrum program that showed a satanic message in the beginning of the song Thank You (from the album Everybody Loves Urusei Yatsura).

There was also a music program for the Spectrum 48K which allowed to play two notes at a time, by rapidly switching between the waveforms of the two separate notes, a big improvement over the mono Spectrum sound. The program was branded after the popular '80s pop band Wham!, and some of the biggest hits of this group could be played with the Spectrum. The program was called Wham! The Music Box and released by Melbourne House, one of the most prolific publishing houses at the time.

[Mr SQL]

Yeah they did that for some early Apple II programs. Didn't last too long though.

Maybe if there had been record functionality on home record players they would have been a more popular strage medium; CD-ROM seemed the same way to me initially.

[Tempest]

Maybe if there had been record functionality on home record players they would have been a more popular strage medium; CD-ROM seemed the same way to me initially.

The advantage of the CD-ROM was that it could store almost 500 floppy disks. There really wasn't any advantage of the record over the tape other than it could be easily tucked into magazines and was pretty cheap to make.

[dark-aleph]

I love it when someone has a completely bonkers idea, and instead of just giggling it away actually goes and does it

 

Next up in VCS hipsterdom - a console with vacuum tubes and Theremin controllers...

[Gorfy]

I love it when someone has a completely bonkers idea, and instead of just giggling it away actually goes and does it

 

Next up in VCS hipsterdom - a console with vacuum tubes and Theremin controllers...

 

Theremin controllers would be awesome

[Great Hierophant]

Instead of CD-ROM, you have floppy ROM. In floppy ROM's case, the software usually came on those 45rpm disks found in magazines and flexible enough to survive a folding.

 

How many times could you "play" a game off a vinyl record before the wear and tear on the grooves from the needle would lead to errors?

[hizzy]

It could be played indefinitely if you have a proper stylus and clean the record well. I have a machine that vacuum cleans the records, and there are great cleaning agents to keep your records "like new". Really, it would boil down to the equipment and the amount of care given. You'd need an anti static inner sleeve, the record would need to be pressed on good vinyl, etc...

[goriddle]

Thanks for all the feedback! I intend on uploading a YouTube video of the process of making the record and showing it in action. The Dragonstomper record is a fun gimmick as a conversation piece, but pretty much pointless since I have the harmony cart. It's cool to know about all of the 80s musicians that used program audio on their albums. I will post more bonkers ideas as I see them to fruition.

[bohoki]

makes me want to record on an 8-trac and make a multicart

[Wickeycolumbus]

This is awesome, I'd love to see a video.

 

I think it's been discussed on the forums before, but no one actually got around to doing it.

[high voltage]

Well we did have Stella gets a new brain, Starpath on CD, in the 90s

[bohoki]

Well we did have Stella gets a new brain, Starpath on CD, in the 90s

 

 

well that is modern a record is quite amazing because it is a device that can work without electricity it would be like doing an edison cylinder

 

an 8 track would be neat so i could play it in an 2-xl the ultimate would be to rig up some kind of acoustic coupler and call up my voice mail and have it play the audio of the game from off site

[Arenafoot]

Just for the hell of it, I recently had a local record shop cut a copy of Dragonstomper on 10" vinyl from the original cassette. It was cut on a record lathe at 33 rpm. It worked like I expected. I was able to play the game just fine. I realize there is no viable reason for this, but it's pretty damn neat. Has anyone heard of this being done before? Have any other types of games been played from record album?

did you have a label made for the center of it? If so, pics please.

[Mr SQL]

I am thinking of releasing Star Blitz on vinyl; perhaps Monochrome Dreams on the B side

 

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

Cool idea. Too bad I don't have a supercharger so it's ROMs on a Harmony or bust...

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

6507 records