[Coco] Re: Banking ROMS (was-6309 microprocessor project:11-01-2003)

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/2/03 8:22:19 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
Torsten at Dittel.info writes:

> > Now, dern it... how did you create the "We Gotcha!" vocals in your 
Mega-Bug
>  > game?!  :) 
>  
>  I guess it's kind of 1-Bit PCM sampled using the CoCo's "Zero Crossing
>  Detector" (cassette port). Recording is done saving the (loop-) times
>  between "bit changes" of the cassette port. Playback is done outputting
>  the "bit changes" to the CoCo's "One Bit Sound" and waiting the recorded
>  (loop-) times again (kind of sequencer). 

My own experienced ear tells me that the "We Got Choo" and the opening 
Mexican theme music are both done in 6-bit D/A sound.  While it's true that you can 
only *record* 1-bit zero-crossing sound thru the cassette port, you can output 
either 1-bit or 6-bit sound to the cassette and TV ports.  Steve would have 
recorded and/or synthesized the tune and speech at leisure on better hardware.

Zero-crossing one-bit sound has been played with on the Coco, and it is more 
or less intelligible if you already know what's being said ("Player One, your 
shot" from some old aircraft game comes to mind), but Mega-Bug sounds much 
better than that.

>Steve must have been an expert
>  of this stuff, remember his great "Spectrum Audio Analyzer" Pak...

No doubt about that.  That was one of my favorite Paks.  Unforch it uses 
semi-grpahics modes and won't run on a Coco3.  --Mike K.