Atari 2600 Full MIDI Interface for Music

I love the sounds of the Atari 2600. I made a MIDI interface that gives you full control over the sound output of an Atari 2600. You can watch a quick demo here.

I really want to thank Paul Slocum and all of the fantastic work that he has done for the inspiration.

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http://little-scale.blogspot.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• electronic
• littlescale
• little
• scale
• atari
• 2600
• chiptune
• chip
• music
• midi
• bit
• micromusic

[gamesDAMNED]

This is outstanding. Have you updated this software program since 2008? I suppose a good test of this MIDI interface is to recreate other people's 2600 chiptunes (8bc comes to mind). If you could replicate them perfectly, then we'd really be in business. Thanks for the terrific work.

[littlescale]

@gamesDAMNED Hi! I have not updated it, and the only update I would want to do at this stage is to add USB MIDI support. As this interface is very responsive and can play all notes at all volumes from all possible sounds etc on the Atari, I don't see why it couldn't replicate any other 2600 tune. In addition to this, it also support sample playback and sample manipulation (in terms of playback speed / pitch), so I think that it can music that sounds quite different to other 2600 music.

[Froboz23]

That is sick. Nicely done.

I'm most interested in the very clean tones at 0:57. The smooth attack and decay is nice on the ears, and there is a subtle echo effect in there as well. I'm guessing the volume data is all coming from the midi device. But I'd like to achieve that same tone quality in a .asm file. Any hints on what the attack and decay would look like in assembly?

BTW, my 5-year-old was dancing to the music. He liked it too. =)

Thanks,

TROGDOR from Atariage

[stringanime]

I like this, but it makes me think of the music one might find playing inside a padded cell.

[cyberbrothers]

Cool

[alteredclone]

oh my holy god.

[nickpelkey]

i'm beyond interested in this project. i'd really like to get something like this up and running. any help would be greatly appreciated.

[glennglog22]

@Froboz23 today he's 7 right?

[farlepet]

Do you have a Schematic for it?

[RichardCyberPunk]

Did you use one TIA chip or two TIA chips ? I used to program the Pokey music chip on the Atari, and in the 90s, we put an extra Pokey in our beloved Atari 130Xe ,and then we had 8 sound channels, and stereo 8-bit sound. Oh,and another question, does anybody know how to program the very rare Atari AMY chip from the Atari XEM music machine prototype ?

[glennglog22]

just like fitghing glados music

[kotep777]

amazing ..so your using multiple sounds from the atari all at once?

really interested...have a modded atari and synthcart and the highly liquid box.....would [love to learn more about this!!!!!!!!