Using 3 Commodore 64s and a floppy drive to perform Partita Prelude #ArtTuesday
Floppy drives and stepper motors have been used to make music before, but for live playing Linus Åkesson thinks the technology is underexplored.
This video features three separate Commodore 64 computers, colour coded for your convenience. I’m playing the melody on a dark grey C64C (custom case from Individual Computers) and chords on a brown “breadbin”. These machines run Qwertuoso, my accordion-inspired C64 program for playing live chip music. An external potentiometer is hooked up as a volume control.
The chord progression was shaped by both musical and technical constraints: I wanted to pick chords that would fit the melody while playfully extending its harmonical structure—but I also had to avoid note combinations that would result in keyboard ghosting.
The third computer, a light grey C64C, doesn’t use the SID chip to generate sound. Instead it controls the motors of a programmable floppy disk drive, providing bass and rhythmical noises. The lid of the drive has been removed in the video so you can see the moving parts.
A 1530 Datasette unit is also put to good use… The DC motor can be turned on or off under software control, causing pleasant whispery noises as the motor spins up or slows to a halt.
Watch all the magic happenning in the video below and read about its creation in the post here.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Python Releases, an ESP32+MicroPython IDE and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey