Community Games related YouTube video thread

Panda Pedinte

Panda Pedinte

Best Sig Maker on the board!
Sep 20, 2018
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I had no idea about that game, too bad the main gimmick seems to not work well.
 
EdwardTivrusky

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Charles Cornell turning his attention to the genius of Tim Follin on the spectrum and 1-bit music



Tim in the comments too!
@BaggyCatEntertainment - 1 month ago

So bizarre again Charles to have a video made about my ancient music!!
But thank you for being so complimentary, it's very much appreciated.
Just to go full-nerd on how the multi-channel thing worked, the Z80 processor in the ZX Spectrum, similar to most processors, has 'registers,' which are basically like a set of chip-level variables you can use to do things like count up and down and do basic math calculations etc.
So the way I generated multiple channels was to assign three or four or five of these registers (depending on how many simultaneous notes I wanted) to different values, then I had a closed loop that just counted each register down to 0, at which point it would execute a 'click' sound - the pulse width of the click dictated the volume like Charles described.
The loop ran just about fast enough that these clicks went at a frequency high enough to make sound.
The sound loop would run for a certain number of cycles, then jump out in order to change the pitch of the notes, then continue with the loop again.
All the notes were contained in number arrays, which I just typed in manually.
The numbers related to the frequency of each note, in terms of how many times per loop the click would happen - the more frequent the higher the note. So it was all just a process of trial and error to find the different notes, which is why they're often out of tune!

Also if the loop contained higher notes - i.e. a higher frequency of clicks - the overall speed would slow, so I had to correct for it by increasing the note values.
The issue was keeping up the speed of the loop, so another thing I did was to use 'self-modifying' code - when the registers counted down to zero, I'd just set them back to a specific value (i.e. let a=40), because looking up a variable (i.e. let a=noteOneValue) would have slowed the loop down too much - then in the main loop I'd write over the bit of code in memory where it set the register to a number with the new values.
As regards the music, well all I can say is I grew up with a piano in the house and two older brothers with a love of prog!
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einstellung

einstellung

Junior Member
Dec 31, 2018
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I think I stumbled across the Videogame Dunkey of VR???

Note: I have no idea what the farting engine into the atomic mirror brains is supposed to be. He does it every video. I think it denotes a random Discord conversation his friends had? I have not figured it out yet.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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It's been 25 years, wow.
I had a pretty low ID number for their forums, i think it all got realocated when Roger Reedpop took over. A bunch of us still hang out on a spin-off Forum after they closed the EG Forums. We even made friends with a bunch of the Italian EG Forumites before they got their own spin-off up and running.

So many memories i'd forgotten keep surfacing as we talk about "the old days" lol, good times.
Anyway...



This is the article mentioned and slightly misremembered in the video. It's a great read and a lovely memory.

www.eurogamer.net

Night and the City

In search of an insight into its historical accuracy, Chris Donlan plays L.A. Noire with his dad, who grew up in the city in the 1940s.
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net
 
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