Pitfall II music: how did they do it!?!?

[mr. engino]

Up until now I've never really thought about how Pitfall II had both the soundtrack and the sound effects at the same time. A quick lookup on wikipedia says that the game uses a special chip to give better graphics as well as sound, in a sense it's like the expansion chips for the NES to give it more sound options, or the Super FX chip for the SNES. While I doubt any other official games used an expansion chip for the 2600, it does raise some interesting questions, of which I will list four:

 

1) how does the chip work and what did it do?

 

2) would other similar expansions be possible?

 

3) are there any homebrew games that use an expansion chip of sorts?

 

and lastly, but kinda optionally,

 

4) Can this kind of functionality be added to TIA tracker?

[+xucaen]

Found this...

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/18645-pitfall-ii-pokey-variation/

[Video]

The sound chip is basically a timing circuit that allows the game to process the sound without using timing by scanlines. It doesn't really add anything, it just makes it easier to do. As for the music and sound effects, if you listen carefully as you do a sound effect, the game actually stops the drum "track" to play the sound effect. It's done really well and barely noticeable though.

[Nukey Shay]

1) The man himself wrote a description on post 11 here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/28149-pitfall-2-how-does-the-sound-travel-from-the-cart/

 

2) Yes. New hardware is constantly being developed by those just insane enough to attempt them. DPC+ was an enhancement over Crane's DPC co-processor design...and the recent CDF is an original (and more sophisticated) co-processor approach.

 

Spiceware wrote how some sample code is reduced in size by utilizing different co-processor methods here (post #5)

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/255177-so-what-is-dpc

 

3) Yes. Anything that is using co-processor hardware as part of its design.

 

4) Possibly irrelevant. Custom hardware means one can create new rules that may or may not utilize TIA (like AtariVOX).

[+SpiceWare]

Chetiry, Mappy, and Stay Frosty 2 use a coprocessor for music like Pitfall II did. Our newer stuff supports custom waveforms, DPC only supported square waves.

 

A coprocessor is not required, though doing without limits what you can show onscreen. You can see & hear this in action in the menu for Stella's Stocking.

[louisg]

The sound chip is basically a timing circuit that allows the game to process the sound without using timing by scanlines. It doesn't really add anything, it just makes it easier to do. As for the music and sound effects, if you listen carefully as you do a sound effect, the game actually stops the drum "track" to play the sound effect. It's done really well and barely noticeable though.

 

Oh wow, I didn't realize it used the digitized sound trick to get the audio out. That makes a lot of sense. Somehow I always assumed there was an audio line on the cart connector like on the Famicom.

[mr. engino]

1) The man himself wrote a description on post 11 here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/28149-pitfall-2-how-does-the-sound-travel-from-the-cart/

 

2) Yes. New hardware is constantly being developed by those just insane enough to attempt them. DPC+ was an enhancement over Crane's DPC co-processor design...and the recent CDF is an original (and more sophisticated) co-processor approach.

 

Spiceware wrote how some sample code is reduced in size by utilizing different co-processor methods here (post #5)

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/255177-so-what-is-dpc

 

3) Yes. Anything that is using co-processor hardware as part of its design.

 

4) Possibly irrelevant. Custom hardware means one can create new rules that may or may not utilize TIA (like AtariVOX).

Just read the post, very interesting! Just thinking that the 2600 can have more features via expansions just keeps making it more and more awesome! So the TIA can be used as a 4 bit DAC? This actually gives me an idea for some demoscene, though I've no way nor knowledge to develop and implement it; and even if I did, my 2600 doesn't work right now...

As for question #4, I was trying to ask if sound based expansions could be added to TIA tracker for advanced music, in a way similar to the expansions you can use in FamiTracker, though I do understand the possible issues of nonstandard expansions.

[Nukey Shay]

Audio manipulation in that sense would be closer to what something like Audacity already does.

[Bucket Brigadier]

While I doubt any other official games used an expansion chip for the 2600, it does raise some interesting questions

 

Actually, there were several expansion chips made by a variety of companies to get more out of the VCS. The DPC was probably the most sophisticated and best known, but Atari, CBS Electronics, and even Mattel produced games with additional chips in the cartridge. Atari Compendium has a run-down on these "super chips":

 

http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/articles/longevity/longevity.html