new video - Amiga-style stereo sound with a C64 (and some help)

 

I have used this technique quite some time ago, at the very early time when the FPGASID was in beta stage. The FPGASID comes with a very unique feature, it is possible to disable the audio for certain voices. I have recorded a couple of SID tunes from the awesome artist Spino which I play occasionally while assembly/solder things in my videos. But to kick this topic even further, I've spent some time to figure out how to configure 2 FPGASIDs so that I get 3 separate channels for standard SID playback. By arranging these 3 channels in a normal 2 channel stereo setup, it is possible to achieve fantastic results. I'm really blown away about how some tunes now sound, it is a whole new experience. To make this approach a bit easier to accomplish, I will work on some additional hardware, so it will be compatible for standard 2 channel stereo setups.

FPGASID and the Ultimate64 - a tricky but worthy liaison :)

 I've got a bit lost in the whole topic of using 1 or 2 FPGASIDs but due to the most recent firmware updates of the Ultimate64, this combination has become even more appealing.

I have created two episodes about the configuration required to run up to two FPGASIDs on the Ultimate64, which you can find here:

And, I'm planning to do a third one, with a different usage scenario, this time I will use the Reloaded MK2 board, just to bring in some variance :)

The most interesting part is perhaps the support of the FPGASID integrated into the Ultimate64 firmware. What I have learned during the production of these episodes, and thankfully by comments to these videos by Gideon himself, is that the Ultimate64 takes care of most of the settings of the FPGASID automatically, hence, you do not need to jump anymore between the Ultimate64 menus and Configuru to get some sound out of the FPGASID. Very handy indeed.

Many thanks to my supporters and all the people who have joined and have contributed to my live stream when I have started to return to this topic. 

Mandelbrot set

 

This is perhaps a bit less related to retro, except for the colors maybe, which I associate with nice 80ies neon colors myself :)

Fractals, and especially the Mandelbrot Z, has me fascinated since I've calculated my very first fractal picture on my GDR KC85/3, somewhen back in the late 80ies. It was a black and white picture with a resolution of 320x200 pixels and it was showing the so called Apfelmännchen. With the technology available at this time, I was barely able to zoom in a few times and could manage iteration values of about 200-300. And calculating these tiny images took many hours, sometimes a day or even more.

The image above is a zoom of about 1000 times, is calculated in a size 24 times bigger than on my little homecomputer back then and the max iteration in this picture is about 3.5 million! Not to mention the colors ;)

And guess what, it took less than an hour to get it done. Mindblowing.

And to kick things into much higher gears, this is the final image of a 4K zoom movie, which you can find here Deep zoom Mandelbrot

Well, rendering the movie was a bit of a challenge. In total the calculations run for about 4 days and occupied 1..4 terrabytes of hard disc space.

If you're interested in such topics, I have a Deviant page here where I post new pictures occasionally.

Busy and sort of distracted ;)

 I'm a bit busy with some side-projects but some of them are not really side-projects for me, just in terms of retro :)

First thing, I had to built a new PC since my old and beloved one started to fall apart after all these years.

My old Area51 from Alienware which I have bought more than 15 years ago and which underwent a few surgeries like a new mainboard plus CPU has some sort of reached it end of life. The Intel 3770 run overclocked for many years but it seams like the power distribution on the Asus board started to deteriorate since I have experienced random crashes and especially a constant reduction in useable USB ports. This made working on video content more and more challenging until I decided, it is about time for change.

I'm not saying that all these RGB LEDs aren't nice but it wasn't the main focus of this project ;)

Now, I've got a brand new system with plenty of power to edit and render videos, to store a lot of content and yes, for occasionally gaming as well :)

The invest has set me back a bit, so I have to reduce expences for retro projects a bit but it was really necessary and helps a lot to create new content.

What I do with this system as well will be revealed shortly.

Connectivity issues

 

While I was trying to add an external SD2IEC device to my third Mssiah C64 I stumbled over the issue that this particular C64 was fitted into a C16 case and the external SD2IEC wouldn't fit due to the different openings of the case. So I decided to swap the Kerberos/Cynthcart C64 against this Mssiah C64. Cynthcart works better with 8580 SIDs and for, especially, the Mssiah Monosynth, I prefer the crunchy 6581R4AR SID. To reconfigure the Mixsids and to swap the SIDs appeared too time consuming so I simply swapped the Mixsids between the two boards, added the external SD2IEC device to the now Mssiah C64 and voila, mission completed :)

The wiring of the C64 in the second picture may look a bit confusing and the main reason is that I have routed the Analog In of the SIDs to two sockets located in the side panel to use them externaly for, for example, a feedback loop. A function that may create interesting noises while working with the filter in Mssiah Monosynth but something I have used very rarely.

So this whole setup is coming together very nicely and I even found some time every now and then to start to use it actually ;)

More coming soon...

Mssiah Controller

 Time to say good bye ;)

Well, one of my followers at Youtube expressed his interest in getting one of this Mssiah Controllers I've build (see this video Mssiah Controller if you don't know what I'm talking about)

Since this version of the controller is a bit tricky to build and I'm constantly running into the issue that I promise more than I can actually fulfill, I decided to ship the existing controller and sometimes, perhaps, maybe, I'm going to build a new one when I discover that I may need another one.

What's so special about this whole thing is that I have used a new type of inserts for the 3D printed socket case, which works way better than the old type I have used. And so I'm able now to use the technique of creating 3D printed parts which are getting connected by inserts and screws. This offers way more flexibility in 3D construction and I can build parts that are really fit together nicely and reliably.

The next long term project will now be the design of a new Mssiah controller which is easier to build and may offer the chance of a small batch production as well, depending on interest and costs.

C64 board collection taking shape

 My shelf is still a bit messy but I'm making some progress :)

Eventually, I got the main portion of my C64 board collection sorted and accessable stored close to my work desk. I've used 12 sets of my 3D printed board stands, which I have printed in batches, 4 sets each.

In case you have missed my post about the board stands, you can find it here:

C64 board stands