AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

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havok1919
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AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by havok1919 »

http://www.swinkels.tvtom.pl/swinsid/

Pretty cool-- check out the audio demos. Might be something to learn from in there for Uzeboxen... :-)

-Clay
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pragma
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Re: AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by pragma »

Neat site. That might be my next project since I have two C64's with sickly/broken SID chips in 'em.

I was just talking with a friend today about offloading the audio processing into another chip, like a co-processor of sorts. This would free up valuable cycles and ROM, for a handful of extra parts and maybe some tricky wiring to mix the two audio outs together. I'm not a circuit designer, so I'm a little out of my depth here.

AFAIK, you can't buy 16 pin OPL chips anymore, so wavetable on something small and dirt-cheap (Attiny for example) might make a suitable replacement (or addition to) the Uzebox's native sound capabilities. And since it's all custom, might as well make the transport between the main CPU and the "sound chip" something debuggable like MIDI; just tap the right pins and plug it into whatever you have handy. Stereo sound would also become a real possibility here too.
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uze6666
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Re: AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by uze6666 »

Neat! Sounds totally awesome, though I imagine it must eat a lot of CPU too!
... wavetable on something small and dirt-cheap (Attiny for example) might make a suitable replacement (or addition to) the Uzebox's native sound capabilities.
Eh, don't forget the ATtinys don't even have MUL instructions and most don't event have a UART. Though the tiny2313 has a UART and 4 PWM channels. But again it's only available in SMT.

Uze
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pragma
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Re: AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by pragma »

uze6666 wrote:Neat! Sounds totally awesome, though I imagine it must eat a lot of CPU too!
... wavetable on something small and dirt-cheap (Attiny for example) might make a suitable replacement (or addition to) the Uzebox's native sound capabilities.
Eh, don't forget the ATtinys don't even have MUL instructions and most don't event have a UART. Though the tiny2313 has a UART and 4 PWM channels. But again it's only available in SMT.

Uze

Heh. That's what I get for looking at the pin count and not reading the spec sheet. :oops:
havok1919
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Re: AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by havok1919 »

uze6666 wrote:Neat! Sounds totally awesome, though I imagine it must eat a lot of CPU too!
Heheh... Yeah, probably like "all of it". ;-)
Eh, don't forget the ATtinys don't even have MUL instructions and most don't event have a UART. Though the tiny2313 has a UART and 4 PWM channels. But again it's only available in SMT.
Actually, the ATTiny2313 does come in DIP. It might be the exception though since it was the upgrade path for the AT90S1200/AT90S2313.

If we ever do want a dedicated sound chip to go with the Uzebox, let me know... I've got some I've been itching to use on something. ;-) (64 voice polyphonic, MIDI, ADPCM, PCM, etc.) They're little BGA devils, but they could go on a breakout/carrier board.

-Clay
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uze6666
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Re: AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by uze6666 »

Actually, the ATTiny2313 does come in DIP.
:oops: Yeah you are right, they have some now. I recall when they initially went to market, Digikey only had SMT in stock for some time.
If we ever do want a dedicated sound chip to go with the Uzebox, let me know... I've got some I've been itching to use on something. ;-) (64 voice polyphonic, MIDI, ADPCM, PCM, etc.) They're little BGA devils, but they could go on a breakout/carrier board.
Hehe, why not put it on the 'experimenter' board then? I would indeed love to do real and nice sounding music. What is that chip btw, and how is it interfaced? SPI, I2C, UART?

Uze
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Re: AVR SID thing (pretty cool)

Post by havok1919 »

uze6666 wrote:Hehe, why not put it on the 'experimenter' board then? I would indeed love to do real and nice sounding music. What is that chip btw, and how is it interfaced? SPI, I2C, UART?
That's a good point actually... I wasn't thinking of that because it's a little evil package for cellphones, but I guess 5 mil trace/space PCB's aren't too expensive now. Hmmm. Maybe I'll look into that a bit more. The only gotcha is that the place I would otherwise use for assembly probably can't do the fine-pitch BGA, maybe I'd just do those here on my equipment instead-- not like we have huge volumes to produce or anything.

It's basically the ML2865 on this sales slick:

http://www.okisemi.eu/docbox/PI_Sheet_M ... _63_65.pdf

It's a slight permutation done for a specific customer, but the specs look about the same. (Same poly, GM, etc.) It has some weird crap like LED drivers, motor driver, etc. built in. (Think cell-phone subsystem.) It has a parallel interface, but SPI is probably the way to go for us.

-Clay
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