Russell Babylon wrote:
> ----- 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
They are in stereo. I know Echkard and John Saegar are working diligently to
make this work on z26 ;-)
Echkard should be able to give more tech specs about them as he figures a way
to emulate them.
-Lee
--
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