Subject: Re: [stella] Kid Vid Voice Module From: "Russell Babylon" <babylon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 20:13:12 -0500 |
----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Horton <khorton@xxxxxxxxxx> To: <stella@xxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 5:55 AM Subject: Re: [stella] Kid Vid Voice Module > At 19:36 1/19/01 +0100, you wrote: > >At 18.58 17/01/01 -0500, Russell Babylon wrote: > > > >>The Kid Vid module was a pretty slick way to add voice and music to Atari > >>games in the early 80's. Each tape apparently had a preamble portion > >>that had a sequence of high pitched tones that were filtered out by the > >>Kid Vid Module and then sent in binary form to the 2600. From this > >>information the 2600 could determine which game on the cartridge it was > >>supposed to play and then start it. Once the game was under way the tape > >>player was under program control from the 2600. > > Actually, the tapes are in stereo. The "program audio" is on one channel, > and the feeps are on the other. Remember too that the tape player is NOT a > standard model and has been highly specialized for this. One could easily > make a "cue file" for the 2600 emulator that would simulate the feeps in > order. this could allow one to "emulate" the preamble and other > things. (heh, someone could go as far to put text in the cue file that > would be printed instead of the audio :-) If the tapes are in stereo then why do I hear the feeps very distinctly when playing the tapes on a non Kid Vid Player? I assume the channel separation is not that poor. I remember the old Worlds of Wonder Teddy Ruskin (which I believe was founded by Nolan Bushnell) used this technique but you could not hear the program information for the robotics unless you played the tape on a stereo tape player and listened to the other channel. I think the tapes may have the "feeps" recorded along with the audio information and then have the Kid Vid extract them using a high pass filter. This is just my gut feeling from playing with the Kid Vid for a couple of weeks. Russ Babylon - Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
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