AYe AYe...

[sascha2000]

Hello,

some months ago I was searching for a project combining retro computing with GAL programming because i bought an EPROM programmer from Hong Kong that was also able to program GALs. Cause I always wanted to have an AY-Sound on my ZX81, which I own since 1981, I decided to build a clone.

I think this decission was taken in parallel with sirmorris?

While searching the WWW I found information about this topic on the german zx81 board. Later I recognized the work of sirmorris ....

However competition increases quality. So one result of this paralell work is that the new zonX clones support a series of port adressess avoiding the adaption of the machine code, like it was done in the past.....

Today I finished my prototype of an zonX clone board. Here you can see the results:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4FZZCv4YjM

I am planning to build a series of 25-50 units. To get a good design I need your feedback.

What is your impression about this board?

Is the flat design OK? Do you prefer a kind of standing design like the zonX?

Do you want the ports to be connected to an interface?

What you're thinking about the STEREO interface (not recognizeable on youtube)?

Thank you in advance for your support.

Regards

Sascha2000

[Andy Rea]

Exccelent, for me it makes no difference as to who makes what board, i may go with SirMorris's ay expansion for ZXpand that way i can use AY sound on more than 1 Zeddy, but i like the challenge of creating things myself... i had a harder time working out which port was register select and whihc was data than actually building the thing !

tis great to see more people interested in AY for the Zeddy.

the thing about the stereo that bugs me, is there seems to be no one 'correct' way, each individual seems to have there own idea about which channel should go left/right/shared. i'm contemplating changing my design to *mono* ( well all channels to left and right simulataneously).

Andy.

P.s. i hate reverse engineering other peoples code !

[Andy Rea]

success

I've cobbled something together that run on zeddy + zxpand. that can play STC files of which plenty are availbale from spectrum-land

these also happen to be the soundtracker compiled format so we can use soundtracker on an emul and create new tunes or i guess other trackers and convert to STC.

so to use it, zxpand
CONFIG "M=L"
LOAD "SS" (this is a small basic program)
LOAD "ZXSTPLAY.BIN;8192" (the player code)

and your choice of STC

LOAD "SHOCK3.STC;32768" (the stc file)

then

RAND USR 8192 (initializes the player)

then

RAND USR 16514 (starts the interrupt handler)

it's not perfect, still uses the IY register instead of IX but it works.

if you want to change tunes, simply stop it first no really a CAT "" stops it, but the sound continues then load new song at memory 32768, do a RAND USR 8192 to initialize it and then RAND USE 16514 to start the interuppts again.

i'll upload some video to youtube shortly.

Regards Andy

ay.zip

the files for the zeddy

(3.72 KiB) Downloaded 245 times

zxstplay.zip

the source for the play and interupt code

(8.67 KiB) Downloaded 282 times

a note on the zxstplay.asm, it was assembled automatically by spectrum stcompiler for address $8000 then disassembled by me, and relocated to $2000 all ix refs are replaced by iy, and all comments added by me, stil not 100% how it works but it does, it looks like there is a note table in there so perhaps i can alter it so that tunes play at the same pitch as on spectrum.

[Andy Rea]

you tube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tizsym426II

[RWAP]

you tube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tizsym426II

Is this using the ZXpand-AY daughterboard which SirMorris has designed to plug into ZXPand?

SirMorris - is there anyway to stop the sound when a command is issued (such as CAT) which stops the track playing and it sticks on the last note?

[Andy Rea]

you tube link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tizsym426II

Is this using the ZXpand-AY daughterboard which SirMorris has designed to plug into ZXPand?

SirMorris - is there anyway to stop the sound when a command is issued (such as CAT) which stops the track playing and it sticks on the last note?

erm no but my sound board should be fully compatible with the AY board SirMorris has created, it's dual mapped the same. both pinkpthe and the other demo work on it just fine.

for the moment this is a small step on the way to creating a player, it's interupt driven (cobbled an interupt driver from Kurmarta's clock program )

you can re-initalize the player, that will mute the sound, but i can add a small section of code to send all zero's to the ay registers, that should mute it too.

the interupt driver needs a bit of work, like adding the function of stopping it, which could also mute the sound, either way if you load a new song into the zeddy you need to re-initialize it, before calling the interupt driver again, else a crash is almost certain.

Andy

[Moggy]

ANDY STAND UP AND TAKE A BOW!!!!

I never thought I would hear tracker style music on a real ZONX-81
This blows me away, Charlie is right about You Mate, You seem to have a great understanding of whats going on "under the bonnet" were hardware is concerned, and now You come up with this little software beauty.

In the time it has taken to write this I'm still listening to tune 1
Andy You have My greatfull thanks.

From a Cat who wished He posessed Your talent

Regards
Moggy

[Andy Rea]

No i'm not a genius, just i do remeber alot, back in the day i played spectrum and wrote a couple of demo's soudtracker was what i used for the music, been Z80 it wasn't difficult, but very time consumming i started tinkering with it yesterday, but by the time i'd got the code separated from the STC file, i was shot, so this morning refreshed i set about seeing what i could do with it... the result is what you see, i didn't have to alter much IX to IY and the port address, working out what bit did what was tough. and i still hate working out code from a raw disassembly. It still needs a bit of work to be stable and useable but hey oh anything is possible.

un-fortunately it seems that the STC format is long gone, alothought supported by many player i can't find a windows program that will let you create them, but alledgedly it was ported to linux.. so maybe.... for now i an trying to find a reasonable way of using spectrum emu to create new STC music, to transfer over to Zeddy.

Andy

[Slipstreem]

Sound Tracker Pro generating STP files on a 128K Speccy came after it in the mid 90s. Maybe it might be easier to track (pun intended) that one down and run it on an emulated Speccy 128 under Windows and output the files from there? THIS English translation of a Russian WIKI page might be a good starting place. Check out the 11th entry down under 'Supported Formats'.

There's also Arkos Tracker for writing music for the AY-3-8912 on a Windows PC, but I have no idea what the saved file structure is or how easily it could be converted to an STC file. All I know is that it says, "Supports Amstrad CPC/Plus, MSX, Spectrum and Pentagon platforms", and it's fun to play with if you're into Tracker software. There's a tune called 'Molusk' hiding away in one of the sub-folders. It's probably one of the cleverest AY tunes you're ever likely to hear. I'd love to hear that played back on a modded ZX81.

[Andy Rea]

Well i've done a bit more digging, and found a source code (Z80) for PT3 player.... modified it so that it will assemble in Tasm, but yet to try it on a Zeddy (or emulator) i'm writting a better intterupt handler at the moment...

but back to the PT3 there is a win32 version of vortex tracker II which saves in PT3 format so fingers crossed we can all become zeddy master musicians

Andy