Forum comments in chronological order

Anonymous
Sun 1-Jan-2012 07:57

Open source it and change the scene! I've been dreaming of building something very similar to this but you have the talent and time to get it done. Great job! -Brett W. (FightCube.com)

Anonymous
Mon 2-Jan-2012 18:46

Excellent demo and awesome instrument!
I want to buy/build one. Will you release the firmware? Will you sell kits?
I hope you will ;)

Anonymous
Mon 2-Jan-2012 18:55

man you're incredible ;)
great job

Anonymous
Tue 3-Jan-2012 15:39

HI Linus your Osiclator it´s awesome, only a question if it´s possible to answer me...

You only use a 555 for Oscilator, or use the Big chip, I´m not sure if it´s an Arduino for generating the wave forms?¿...

Thanks in advance and excuseme for my poor english...

Kinds regards, from Spain.
Iván J

Anonymous
Tue 3-Jan-2012 18:28

great. really great.
please please please release the firmware as open source, start a new projekt on github! it's great, i wanna build my own bitbuf, maybe with other extensions, and based on atmega32.

your firmware, is it made in asm or c? (hoping for c, and hoping you release it with a nice licence).

good work! go on!

Anonymous
Tue 3-Jan-2012 22:06

Read the info at least...

"An ATmega88 with 1 kB of RAM and 8.5 kB of ROM, running at 20 MHz, programmed in C and assembly language. The tight hardware specifications aid in keeping the design minimalistic."

Anonymous
Wed 4-Jan-2012 18:28

btw, i don't know if you know Uzebox, and what is your oppinion about this - http://uzebox.org - is this interesting enough for you coding something there as well?

Anonymous
Fri 6-Jan-2012 05:23

Wow, I am impressed.
I would buy this.
But I think a hard case (perhaps clear) would help me worry less of potential damage.

Anonymous
Fri 6-Jan-2012 07:11

I would buy one immediately!

Anonymous
Fri 6-Jan-2012 15:23

Please, do all Megaman NES Intros!...specially the Megaman 2 Intro y Willy stage 1

You rock! 8 bit style!

Anonymous
Sat 7-Jan-2012 12:53

(Nearly) unhackable slide presentation system! And you won't have to pay Microsoft $400 to use it. (Typical Powerpoint price.) Also, no updates/etc, since you will control the code and every aspect of the system! I love it!

Anonymous
Sun 8-Jan-2012 00:12

Is there an emulator for this? I'd like to play these demos on my pc (including video+audio).

Anonymous
Sun 8-Jan-2012 21:02

I thought you might like this: Someone on the AtariAge forums composed the first song for the Atari 2600. Look for castlevania_level1_07.bas.bin in this thread: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/132116-porting-the-original-classic-castlevania-to-the-2600/page__st__75
In case the forums require registration for downloads I uploaded the binary here: http://www.acc.umu.se/~tjoppen/files/vcs/castlevania_level1_07.bas.bin

/Tjoppen (svenskar talar engelska med andra svenskar..)

Anonymous
Mon 9-Jan-2012 03:56

http://www.linusakesson.net/games/autosokoban/?v=1&seed=752450309&level=15 is killing me!

Anonymous
Tue 10-Jan-2012 07:09

Kickstarter has funded a lot of innovative people, take printrbot for example.

Qball
Tue 10-Jan-2012 09:52

Fantastic work! I really love the looping options, the sound and the effects.

Anonymous
Tue 10-Jan-2012 12:02

amazing. thanks for all

Anonymous
Wed 11-Jan-2012 18:38

Thats an amazin job, congrats!! Of cours now that you show off you need to feed the trolls and release some schemas :P (just to make the trolls bigger and more hungry hehehe).

Anonymous
Wed 11-Jan-2012 18:40

Some nice feature I could see there:

-sync with another bitbuff

tesla1980
Thomas
Thu 12-Jan-2012 11:20

Hello, i also build your craft before 3 Years now. Its just amazing. I have one problem : at the end its over and i wish to loop the programm , but i have no idea how to change the code and to compile it. Can you make this 4 me, please and send me via Email !?

Anonymous
Thu 12-Jan-2012 14:37

Very informative article, thanks very much for sharing it with the web.

Anonymous
Thu 12-Jan-2012 16:13

Oh, wow, this is pretty cool. Like the others, I would love to see the code for this so I could try my hand at duplicating it. Also, what is the little 4 pin IC next to the ATMega?

As for any improvements, I dunno. Perhaps a larger memory bank and interface so if you make a progression you're particularly proud of you can save it and recall it later for recording or to show off or something. Or maybe live you could make some sort of really catchy hook that you keep coming back to while playing other songs interspersed. Or something.

Either way, fantastic stuff. I'm gonna bookmark this page to keep on top of any updates.

Anonymous
Fri 13-Jan-2012 00:29

I made more gates (out of just NANDs, as I don't understand how to use the MOSFETs yet)!

Usage:
./<gate>.sh A B Q
A = Input 1
B = Input 2 (if applicable)
Q = Output

--Begin AND---
#!/bin/sh
A=$1
B=$2
Q=$3
C=tmp.and.t0.$$
mkfifo $C
./nand.sh $A $B $C &
./nand.sh $C $C $Q
---End AND---
---Begin OR---
#!/bin/sh
A=$1
B=$2
Q=$3
C=tmp.or.t0.$$
D=tmp.or.t1.$$
mkfifo $C $D
./nand.sh $A $A $C &
./nand.sh $B $B $D &
./nand.sh $C $D $Q
---End OR---
---Begin NOR---
#!/bin/sh
A=$1
B=$2
Q=$3
C=tmp.nor.t0.$$
D=tmp.nor.t1.$$
E=tmp.nor.t2.$$
mkfifo $C $D $E
./nand.sh $A $A $C &
./nand.sh $B $B $D &
./nand.sh $C $D $E &
./nand.sh $E $E $Q
---End NOR---
---Begin NOT---
#!/bin/sh

A=$1
Q=$2

./nand.sh $A $A $Q
---End NOT---
---Begin XNOR---
#!/bin/sh
A=$1
B=$2
Q=$3
C=tmp.xnor.t0.$$
D=tmp.xnor.t1.$$
E=tmp.xnor.t2.$$
F=tmp.xnor.t3.$$
mkfifo $C $D $E $F
./nand.sh $A $B $C &
./nand.sh $A $C $D &
./nand.sh $B $C $E &
./nand.sh $D $E $F &
./nand.sh $F $F $Q
---End XNOR---
---Begin XOR---
#!/bin/sh
A=$1
B=$2
Q=$3
C=tmp.xor.t0.$$
D=tmp.xor.t1.$$
E=tmp.xor.t2.$$
mkfifo $C $D $E
./nand.sh $A $B $C &
./nand.sh $A $C $D &
./nand.sh $B $C $E &
./nand.sh $D $E $Q
---End XOR---

Anonymous
Fri 13-Jan-2012 02:32

Oh! I solved it!

Anonymous
Fri 13-Jan-2012 11:34

Very nice!
It will need a way of syncing with others
¿maybe a analog clock I/O? for sync it with old stuff
Nice work!!

Anonymous
Sat 14-Jan-2012 01:42

Well, I won't post "anonymously", but I won't register an account here, cause I have a zillion accounts everywhere. The Chipophone is a brilliant piece of hardware, but what you did with it (playing several of my tune on it in a way that nobody would ever be able to do has meant a lot to me!). I am really glad that I finally saw a picture of you where you smiled; cause during the music performances you really looked like a too serious bloke! :) Thank you for your efforts towards "our" scene and I hope you will prosper in every single way. (Jeroen Tel / Maniacs of Noise)

Anonymous
Sat 14-Jan-2012 01:45

Tune = of course TUNES (argh, damn typos @ 1:45 am at night ... LOL (Jeroen Tel / Maniacs of Noise)

Anonymous
Sat 14-Jan-2012 05:09

I would like to make one myself, if you release the schematics, because i have a lots of components, and i don't know what to do with them, i made the phasor, but i still need a programmer and a good software.
Stefan from Brasov, Romania

Anonymous
Tue 17-Jan-2012 00:58

Hello Linus,
Your work is very impressive *and* inspiring!
I'm trying to reproduce your work, but without copying your code. I want to "reinvent the wheel" and learn some stuff along the way :D I understand the physics of sound, but I'm no musician! My first implementation on an AT90S2313 @ 8MHz (I know it's old but I like challenges --just like you do ;) has two pulse waves, a 4bit triangle and noise. I guess this sounds good for a first attempt, but the sound is... "flat" and boring. I thought of implementing some simple effects (vibrato and pitch bend), but when I did, the sound become noisy! My code is too slow...

Does your code apply a certain effect on each channel, or I'ts capable of changing the effects from note to note?

Is your code capable of playing music on all channels simultaneously?

I hope my questions are making sense and I thank you in advance for any answer (and your time of course)!

Panagiotis :)

Anonymous
Wed 18-Jan-2012 00:00

Real great article thanks very much.

joeforker
Daniel Holth
Wed 18-Jan-2012 14:58

Can you provide a few more details about the number of bits used for the triangle waves, dpcm tables, etc? Does it use multiplication or have an envelope generator? Mostly inspired by the NES synthesizer like the Chipophone?

Anonymous
Thu 19-Jan-2012 09:19

Certainly buy one if you propose kit to sale!!!
Great Job!

Anonymous
Fri 20-Jan-2012 01:19

Great machine, and great creator

Anonymous
Fri 20-Jan-2012 23:33

Oh I think I am feeling queasy after trying to understand this.

Anonymous
Fri 20-Jan-2012 23:34

Makes sense, in a paranoid kinda way.

Anonymous
Sat 21-Jan-2012 02:27

There are several companies that indeed try to buy PageRank. They want "text links" that don't use 'nofollow'. The payment is indeed around 100-200 USD/year, or a one time payment (!) of a similar amount. Simply don't do it since Google seems to frown (justly) on sites that sell PageRank.

John Bokma (visited your blog because of the "Computing with the command line" article via HaD. Will read later, looks interesting)

Anonymous
Sat 21-Jan-2012 03:12

You sir, are a genius! Incredible work, and congrats for being in hackaday. (=
M.

Anonymous
Sat 21-Jan-2012 18:03

A pipe is not a wire... it is more like a diode.

Anonymous
Sat 21-Jan-2012 20:34

I don't know if this was in the explanation or not, but what do the +8 and +16 switches do? And why is there no +16 switch for the upper manual?

Anonymous
Sun 22-Jan-2012 17:39

I utterly disagree! Without syntax highlighting, (or more specifically semantics highlighting) in an IDE like eclipse, I am completely useless as a programmer. I absolutely rely on semantics highlighting to avoid simple, stupid errors like variables being out of scope, or misspelling a class name. "Huh, why is this function call not in blue? Oh, I spelled it mian instead of main!" This has saved me a TON of debugging time over the years, as I never have to compile to understand and fix a sytax error, a template error, a misspelling, or a type error, as the semantics highlighting instantly tells me when something's wrong.

This has also allowed me to understand other people's code better. I instantly know what's a macro, what's a typedef, and what's a struct or class. It's allowed me to parse people's differing naming schemes and formatting rules much easier as well.

In my opinion, syntax highlighting and especially semantics highlighting vastly improve productivity. I would prefer it if we got rid of name formatting conventions altogether and just replace them with colors -- easier to parse, easier to understand, and easier to debug!

Anonymous
Mon 23-Jan-2012 09:00

I think it acts as a piece of metal here. It can be charged by writing, discharged by reading.
cat command transfers charge from one piece of metal to another...

Anonymous
Mon 23-Jan-2012 11:21

I can see this getting very out of hand, love it :)

Anonymous
Mon 23-Jan-2012 14:25

man select
man epoll

Anonymous
Mon 23-Jan-2012 18:40

Using the DUP System http://dupsystem.org/ you could turn this into a distributed computation and also avoid running out of PIDs simply by adding more PCs ;-). DUP might also simplify your specification of the links and you could use it to re-use definitions of logic circuits (by embedding calls to 'dup' within a DUP program). Next step: pipe-based microprocessors ;-)

Anonymous
Mon 23-Jan-2012 20:12

Now you just need to build a complete computer out of this which will run INTERCAL.

Anonymous
Tue 24-Jan-2012 03:22

Is this only for fun, which I salute, or am I missing something? We use (physical) NANDs to run pipes which we use to... construct NANDs?! :D Brilliant work, I am just curious - what this could bee used for?

Anonymous
Tue 24-Jan-2012 04:02

Yo dawg.....

Anonymous
Tue 24-Jan-2012 06:24

code always needs cleaning up haha
great job, sir!

v/r
K

Anonymous
Tue 24-Jan-2012 11:08

Very nice!!

but:

/dev/zero > /dev/null does not make 1/0 but produce a resistance with a current flow of Y b/s

try:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null count=204800
the flux of "current" is finite...and very low!!!
This mean that the wire it's a very resistive to the flown of "electrons" (bits generated by the difference of potenzial by /dev/zero and /dev/null).

This involve that the logic emulation is like a time based simulation where the clock is the limit of the flown velocity, assuming 1/0 infinite with a dt very long (dI/dt should be Inf in case of wire from /dev/zero to /dev/null)

mutek

mutek@inventati.org

Anonymous
Tue 24-Jan-2012 14:18

Witch is your keyboard brand?

Anonymous
Tue 24-Jan-2012 15:38

Perpetual computers anyone? Does nobody see that, with enough skill, one could get one of these to run an operating system, capable of creating symbolic pipes. Think what could happen then... with unlimited memory, infinite computers, within one another, could occur.

Dunno the implications, but cool nonetheless.

Oscar2
Wed 25-Jan-2012 02:58

It does the same thing on both sides of the if:

if(0 != (x & 1073741824))
recurse(x * 2, n - n / n);
else
recurse(x * 2, n - n / n);

Did you mean to do that?
I don't see this thing doing the Egyptian multiplication described in the previous post.

Anonymous
Wed 25-Jan-2012 12:37

Obviously a M Audio Oxygen

Anonymous
Sat 28-Jan-2012 22:01

Any Chance you would be willing to share the binary ROM for the atmega to us? the schematics would be nice, but not as necessary to reproduce seeing as you posted a picture of the protoboard.
--Primis

Anonymous
Sun 29-Jan-2012 11:46

YOU ARE A GOD

Anonymous
Mon 30-Jan-2012 19:06

I would love build one of these, do you have any plans of releasing the code and making schematics?