[GDRI]

eBay Alert: Greg Easter, formerly a programmer of 2600 games at Atari, Inc. between 1982 and 1984, is selling some items related to an unreleased 2600 game he was working on based on the cult San Francisco band The Residents and their album Mark of the Mole. The collection includes:

- Sheet music
- Polaroids of the game screen
- Programming notes
- Two business cards

Via GameSetWatch via GameSniped

[B00daW]

Not a whole lot of true tones can be easily generated out of the Atari TIA (chip for audio/video in 2600 and 7800 machines.)

This one particularly strikes my interest because I have intimate experience with trying to produce audio and music out of the chip.

I would like to hear how the programmer intended to get a wide range of tones out of the TIA without a lot of additional processor revving and lagging; being that there are 5 bits of frequency modulation per "instrument"; resulting in pseudo-random tones low to high.

Here is an example of modern music using two 2600's; meaning two TIAs; resulting in 4 audio channels out.

Even though the song is catchy, the minimalism and glitchiness for the most part is intentional only due to designed limitations.

I've even read a lot of Paul Slocum's source for the sequencer kit that went into the SynthCart's production which made this music to see that there isn't much additional revving and lagging done to detune -- or in this case tune -- any of the 5-bit frequencies, passed through the 4-bit (in Slocum's kit sense... 3-bit) pre-assigned "instruments" through the two audio control oscillators (or channels.)

To quote Steve Wright in the Stella programmer manual:

[rbudrick]

Residents rule. Primus stole much of their sound, imo.

-Rob

[GDRI]

Found an article on Digital Press about the game here. Includes design notes and a one-second clip from an Atari marketing video.