sparkdrummer Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 SOUNDPORT.DSK The above disk contains SOUNDPORT EXPERIMENT I for use with a Minimem and cassette recorder. Files on the disk: DATAFORCE - DF/80 for use with disk system - see page 7 of doc below DISKTAPE - Allows you to make a tape copy of the file SOUNDPORT for use with Minimem. DO_OLDCON,DO_OLDSND,DO_SAVECON,DO_SAVESND,DO_SNOOPER - These files were written by Doug Otten, former VAST member - See page 6. PROGRAM0 - This is the original Console basic program put out by DATAFORCE. PROGRAM1.PROGRAM2,PROGRAM3,PROGRAM4 - These were extracted from the above, see docs. SOUNDPORT - Minimem program SOUND PORT EXPERIMENT.pdf 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 DIGISYNT.DSK DIGISYNT If you load the file VASTRAFFLE on the above dsk, you will see how I used DIGISYNT at my clubs meetings. DIGISYNT.pdf 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 Thank you, Sparkdrummer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 It would be neat if someone out there comes up with some cool audio for either one of these programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 (edited) Wow, there are so much stuff for digitizing. I also know that there is also a program that digitize audio using TI99 and the tape Recorder, but still not found the floppy that containing it. in the meantime, i found this package among my TI stuff instead: i could scan and Dump it if not already done this was a short description of it, from Ernie Pegrem: Edited February 16, 2019 by ti99iuc 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 One wonders how that pio cable is configured. Could you whip up a schematic Ciro? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 One wonders how that pio cable is configured. Could you whip up a schematic Ciro? It was a pretty common thing on PCs - just a simple resistor ladder. It's almost certainly the same thing. For example: https://hackaday.com/2014/09/29/the-lpt-dac/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 (edited) One wonders how that pio cable is configured. Could you whip up a schematic Ciro? well... i would like but the chip on the little PCB has text deleted, so i do not know how Edited February 16, 2019 by ti99iuc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+arcadeshopper Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 well... i would like but the chip on the little PCB has text deleted, so i do not know how 1.jpg resistors in an array.. just take their value if you look at that link that Tursi provided it has this: all the chip is on the TI board is a bunch of resistors in a DIP package. Greg 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 Since Arduino has become so popular on YouTube...Sometimes the easy place to start looking for a how tointerfacing video for TI use is to find an ever popularArduinoing parallel... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AulX1OM7RwE also... ET03 - Arduino plays TRON PCM sound via 8 Bit R2R resistor ladder 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 Yep, exactly that! I posted a pretty rough link, but a search for "LPT DAC" (LPT being the PC printer port, DAC being Digital-Analog Converter) brings up lots of schematics. Just remap the pins to the TI port and it will likely work fine. Or just buy one of the still available PC remakes and use an adapter cable. They aren't intelligent so don't need any of the control lines. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unhuman Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Didn't Perfect Push have digitized voice? So, no parallel weirdness... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Didn't Perfect Push have digitized voice? So, no parallel weirdness... Perfect Push utilized the sound chip output. It's possible to set the sound chip to the highest frequency and change the amplitude. There are 16 possible amplitude levels, and you can process an 8-bit sample to a best fit, and play it back. It's not a tremendous fit, but it was pretty exciting to break through that limitation in 1986. with the sound chip, you can do better by mixing 3 channels of that trick. There is another trick I found on the Intellivision forum that rapidly changes the square wave frequency. They have decomposed the sample onto square wave basis functions, and select the 3 highest coefficients per playback sample period. Here is that thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260647-sound-synthesis-with-square-waves/page-2?hl=fm%20synth Sky Jaguar Speech 2 plays samples in game on 3 square waves. PSG is the AY-8910 chip. This one I think requires an expansion hardware to add 5 SCC sine waves? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Perfect Push utilized the sound chip output. No, it didn't. It did the title page speech by toggling the cassette audio gate line to provide a single-bit tick. I released a TMNT game back in the day that played back audio through the sound chip - it was sampled from the cassette port so was still 1-bit: There was a program called Sound F/X that also played back sampled audio, though it did use the full range. I don't see any samples of it on YouTube but it allowed you to load and play PC VOCs (and wavs?) There is another trick I found on the Intellivision forum that rapidly changes the square wave frequency. They have decomposed the sample onto square wave basis functions, and select the 3 highest coefficients per playback sample period. We also brought this one over to the TI, though the quality isn't quite there yet. (But at least one ColecoVision game used it). Sadly the extra range of the AY chip sound better than the TI PSG. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/255859-voice-encoding-and-playback-with-no-speech-synth/?hl=%2Bartrag I was working on porting it away from Matlab, but I need to get back to that. It's on my list. Of course my video playback plays back audio via the sound chip, with Dragon's Lair being the current best of my experiments there: https://youtu.be/UXExQq0eq0Y?t=108 Now with all that time invested, my opinion is that it's hard to get much better quality. The sound chip is the slowest hardware in the console to write to (the speech synth is slower, but it's outside the console), which limits your maximum frequency. Worse than that, the logarithmic scale of the volume control means that there's very poor volume control for the louder sounds, all the fine detail is down at the softest end. Worse, although it's outside of the human hearing range, there's a high frequency square wave component which adds distortion to the audio. All that to say - the 8-bit linear DAC on the parallel port would sound a lot better. It'd be fun to do a video test to see what the quality difference sounds like... 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 I'd like to just sit back and watch\listen this time... If You and F.P. make it a contest... ...maybe I could sell tickets. Good stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 (edited) No, it didn't. It did the title page speech by toggling the cassette audio gate line to provide a single-bit tick. I released a TMNT game back in the day that played back audio through the sound chip - it was sampled from the cassette port so was still 1-bit: Thanks for correcting me on that. I think I heard the Perfect Push sample on a disk with BUSHCNN and others for sound chip playback, so I thought it was done that way in the game. Edited February 18, 2019 by FarmerPotato Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 I'd like to just sit back and watch\listen this time... If You and F.P. make it a contest... ...maybe I could sell tickets. Good stuff. I haven't touched it since 1987. I just found my disk though. It has some 8-bit samples I downloaded from CompuServe and converted to 4 bit without knowing that I should use a logarithmic scale. "My god its full of stars" and a TOS phaser sound. Barry Boone came up with the same technique, and published it, so I moved on. I also had a program that would draw '*' when the cassette input was 1, and I experimented with filling the screen over and over just to see what patterns it might make. Totally ignorant about what to do next. The real value to me? I spent a summer reading the E/A manual and asking myself 'what can I do with this info?' on every page. The world is so much more complicated today. I don't want to get distracted by sound just when I've spent two weeks doing bitmap graphics routines.. I have a 24 bit I2S DAC hooked up to my 4A that I have to get back to... so many projects... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+TheBF Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Did the 8 bit samples you had use uLaw or ALaw type encoding? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-law_algorithm) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 Did the 8 bit samples you had use uLaw or ALaw type encoding? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-law_algorithm) law is just a compression scheme to bring 12 and 13 bit down to 8 bit. Spent 11 years of my life living in that world. Despite the crazy math they use on Wikipedia in the real world it's just a lookup table. You can also just have pure 8 bit linear samples. Thanks for correcting me on that. I think I heard the Perfect Push sample on a disk with BUSHCNN and others for sound chip playback, so I thought it was done that way in the game. Curious about that disk! I only knew Perfect Push cause it was the only program I had with sampled speech back in the day, so when I implemented support in Classic99 to play back samples and it didn't work, I had to dig into it. I also had a program that would draw '*' when the cassette input was 1, and I experimented with filling the screen over and over just to see what patterns it might make. Kind of curious about that, too, did you ever manage anything fun to see? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+TheBF Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 law is just a compression scheme to bring 12 and 13 bit down to 8 bit. Spent 11 years of my life living in that world. Despite the crazy math they use on Wikipedia in the real world it's just a lookup table. You can also just have pure 8 bit linear samples. I spent some time their too. One of our products was a test set for ISDN phones. Not a big market. My question was ill-stated. Has anyone used these compression techniques for 8 bit audio on the 99? I can't think of a way to do the D/A conversion however so ignore me if this is irrelevant. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted February 18, 2019 Share Posted February 18, 2019 I spent some time their too. One of our products was a test set for ISDN phones. Not a big market. My question was ill-stated. Has anyone used these compression techniques for 8 bit audio on the 99? I can't think of a way to do the D/A conversion however so ignore me if this is irrelevant. Unless you can play back samples with at least 12 bits of resolution, there's no value to using law compression. The TI totally can't as it stands. There are 4 bits of volume control on the sound chip. I don't think we'd get good results out of PWM on the sound chip, as I don't think we can hit it fast enough. A dedicated port might manage PWM, since we can go a lot faster without the delay, but if you're adding hardware anyway I'd just add a DAC, or dedicated sample-playback hardware. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted March 1, 2019 Author Share Posted March 1, 2019 DIGI_TURSI.dsk 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted March 1, 2019 Share Posted March 1, 2019 Ooh, there'a a blast from the past! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkdrummer Posted March 1, 2019 Author Share Posted March 1, 2019 Id hoped youd be surprised and pleased. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 Not much of my old "Mike Ward" stuff has survived into the present day 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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