[Coco] My introduction - a newbie

[Joel Ewy]

Torsten Dittel wrote:
> Joel Ewy schrieb:
>  
>   
>> As Torsten mentions, the CoCo's built-in sound is not the computer's
>> strong point.  However, even with its limited hardware, there are some
>> games that make pretty good use of it.  I've always found the explosion
>> sounds in Polaris to be quite satisfying.  And Mega Bug (Pac-Man-like)
>> says "We Gotcha" when you lose.  Dungeons of Daggorath makes a heartbeat
>> sound that speeds up as your health declines and slows down as you
>> rest.  Recent discussions on this list have re-ignited my interest in
>> the Orchestra 90CC.  I may get it out again and plug it in.
>>     
>
> Yep, Polaris hat great sound! I liked that game a lot. IMHO the more
> interesting cartridge is the SSC. 
I agree that the SSC is probably the more interesting of the two.  But
the Orch-90 hardware is so simple it would be a shame not to include it
as well.  It's really just a stereo DAC / audio amp with some ROM
software.  Doesn't the SSC have a DAC at some point in the circuit?  Or
is it a purely analog device?  If it does have a DAC, I think it would
make sense to devise a way to combine it with the Orch-90, if that is at
all feasible.
> I once started thinking about adding
> background music (ATARI ST soundfiles) to CoCo games using the SSC and
> learned about the sound chip and its registers and how to convert the
> files, but some people here figured out that the SSC's "CPU" is
> delivering the register data much too slow to the soundchip (I though it
> would be easy, only 14 register updates max. per 1/50 (1/60) seconds).
> So I never tried it by myself. If I should ever start this project again
> I'll figure out how much CPU-cyles *exactly* it needs to update a
> certain amount of registers. The number of register updates could be
> highly reduced anyway by analyzing, pre-processing and that way
> compressing the sound file.
>
>   
Are you talking about reprogramming the SSC's onboard microcontroller? 
I don't have a very complete understanding of how the SSC works.

JCE
> Regards,
> Torsten
>
>   


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