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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment. |
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9th May 2023, 9:57 pm | #41 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: North Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,087
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Re: Micro music box project.
The 48Z02 wasnt retaining and with its age I fully expected the battery to be flat,
But on these you can actually chisel the upper battery section off, it breaks away leaving (hopefully) two exposed contacts on the ram itself. Divide and conquer! I measured the cell - 0.4v which isnt bad after 35 years! I then got a brand new coincell and soldered it backwards to the ram, and so destroyed it Ho hum. And it was all going so well... Another one is on its way from the 'bay. The idea is to put the Twonky eprom contents in page 0, and use page 1 as ram, which allows the Aitken SC/MP to mimic the Twonky hardware. We hope. Last edited by Phil__G; 9th May 2023 at 10:05 pm. |
9th May 2023, 10:15 pm | #42 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,485
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Re: Micro music box project.
Good luck!
This won't help, but I have discovered where ETI hid their mistakes and corrections: In the 'News Digest' section which is usually fairly early on in the magazine, but punctuated by adverts so you may have to look through 15-18 pages to make sure you have definitely read all of 'News Digest' in a particular issue. The reason I say it won't help is that although I went right through 'News Digest' in all of the issues up until the end of 1979 and found quite a few errata for other projects, I found no further mention of Twonky. I think Computing Today was up and running by this time, is it possible that they may have put any follow ups for the project in there instead? |
9th May 2023, 10:47 pm | #43 | |
Octode
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
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Re: Micro music box project.
Quote:
At the time I started off on this I was just thinking of getting something that could play background music that wasn't specifically recognizable. As a frustrated musician of no talent I was intrigued to see what twonky sounded like.... I'd bought Pedro Kroger's book "Music for Geeks and Nerds" (https://www.pedrokroger.net/mfgan) and completely failed to get very far in my knowledge of music theory let alone any insight into how to make an "auto composer" or aything that produced listenable tunes. Its more frustrating because so many people in my family are musicians who have also failed to be able to teach me to play anything! |
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10th May 2023, 1:50 am | #44 |
Octode
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
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Re: Micro music box project.
Well I've done some digging and found the sources I had. This source contains the patches from the Complement and Add to allow it to run on the MK14, with the original statements commented out.
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10th May 2023, 3:28 am | #45 | ||
Octode
Join Date: May 2018
Location: Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK.
Posts: 1,394
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Re: Micro music box project.
Quote:
Many projects I attempted to build from Electronics magazines back in the early had significant errors - especially with veroboard layouts, whilst if the PCB artwork was giving, this was generally more reliable (more so than the circuit diagrams - where many TV and computer manufacturers also had errors on these, due to primitive CAD that didn't link these via netlists). I do recall once sending Everday Electonics 2 pages of the errors I'd found with their DMM project - even though it used PCB's. But they replied they couldn't contact the author, for comment, so I don't think they published any corrections. Apparently Elektor do build all their published projects in their own labs, for testing. Oh the joys of spending hours over many nights, typing in magazine program listings back then - Only to be disappointed by the results from the magazine cover photos - If the program worked at all! Some magazines did try printing exact graphical copies of the printout from the computer, with no re-typesetting of it, to try to prevent errors creeping-in. But ZX-printer etc. outputs weren't the clearest to start with, so it could still be difficult to interpret exactly what should be typed (especially when odd-symbols like Commodore had on the keys). Although at least with BASIC, it did teach you how to debug it / and often learnt how to program (or not) from this. However, you haven't got much chance with a hex-dump, without disassembling it (and ideally having a copy of the correct assembly-language source). |
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10th May 2023, 8:29 am | #46 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
Ian, thanks for the source of your version. It will be interesting to compare the differences, if any.
Owen: Sleepless night last night? I had a light bulb moment and just did a general internet search on 'Twonky' which is such a unique word that I hoped it might find a youtube video of the original project working. No such luck, apparently there was a 50s SciFi series called 'The Twonky' and that, plus some kind of multimedia app of the same name gets in the way of any other meaningful results. Last edited by SiriusHardware; 10th May 2023 at 8:44 am. |
10th May 2023, 10:56 am | #47 | |
Octode
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
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Re: Micro music box project.
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10th May 2023, 12:06 pm | #48 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: North Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,087
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Re: Micro music box project.
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10th May 2023, 12:43 pm | #49 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
If I get a chance tonight I'll do a side by side comparison between my and Slothie's ASM versions of the code as modified for MK14 by Geoff P. It would be great if they turn out to be line for line identical and produce identical code.
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10th May 2023, 1:08 pm | #50 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: North Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,087
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Re: Micro music box project.
has anyone with a MK14 tried it yet? as far as I can see it will run without the prsg but wont randomise...
This weekend I'm away camping at Old Warden (Shuttleworth Collection) so I'll take all this to read up properly No Mills & Boon here Found this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sc4...GHKs70zE_MB_8K Last edited by Phil__G; 10th May 2023 at 1:37 pm. |
10th May 2023, 1:19 pm | #51 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
I once accidentally went past OW when there was obviously an airshow underway, but kept on going to my original planned destination... The National Museum Of Computing at Bletchley.
Hope you have a good time there (and the weather is kind enough to let the old kites fly). |
10th May 2023, 1:34 pm | #52 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
Quote:
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10th May 2023, 1:41 pm | #53 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: North Yorkshire, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
and this:
https://monoskop.org/images/1/1a/Von...puter_1969.pdf https://www.discogs.com/artist/154028-JK-Randall ...but nothing about an algorithm by Prof Randall that in any way aligns with the Twonky... Last edited by Phil__G; 10th May 2023 at 1:49 pm. |
10th May 2023, 2:41 pm | #54 |
Octode
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
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Re: Micro music box project.
I'd guess something of the sort. You would hear something however. I would imagine you could just touch the SenseB pin to inject hum to get some variations.
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10th May 2023, 3:16 pm | #55 |
Dekatron
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Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
Staying with TWONKY specifically, can anyone suggest which pins of the 4006 shift register IC are which, in the attached circuit diagram subsection? I mean specifically the four unmarked pins on the upper side of IC2.
The circuit write up says that the source input to the PRBS circuit is from NADS and that seems likely to go to the clock input of IC2, pin 3. The 4006 seems to be a bit of a building block IC with the possibility of 'assembling' the internal stages in a number of different ways. |
10th May 2023, 3:33 pm | #56 |
Dekatron
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Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
Aha, a very similar looking circuit here with the same arrangement of 3x XOR gates. Plus IC pin numbers and the interconnections between the individual shift register blocks which are omitted on the ETI version.
https://gr33nonline.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/lfsr/ |
10th May 2023, 3:34 pm | #57 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1,265
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Re: Micro music box project.
My guess left to right would be
Pin 6 Pin 9 and Pin 5 Pin 10 and Pin 4 (Pin 12 and Pin 1 connected together) Pin 13 |
10th May 2023, 3:43 pm | #58 |
Dekatron
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Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
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Re: Micro music box project.
Full marks, Mark See the diagram linked to in #56. I may just build this. The 4006 and 4070 (equivt to 4030) are £4.00 the pair plus post from Cricklwood. Not too heavy. There's just something in me that wants to hear this thing work exactly the way the designer meant it to, not just with any old random stimulus.
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10th May 2023, 3:58 pm | #59 |
Octode
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
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Re: Micro music box project.
I based the PRBS on the ortonview on this circuit from the Formant Synthesiser, with reference to other similar generators on other ETI and Elektor designs.
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10th May 2023, 5:49 pm | #60 | |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
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Re: Micro music box project.
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