(Un)funny thing that these days there is a new problem with OPL. Earlier we had a lot of cheap ISA OPL cards and no modern motherboards with ISA slots. PCI is still there, but these days motherboards has like 1-2 PCI slots, and sometimes not all the slots could be used physically (because things like PCI-E videocards are huge), so it could be a problem to use PCI card.
209 Jan 8, 2011 10:45 pm
Re: Yamaha YMF724 (3 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)
211 Dec 25, 2010 3:10 am
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
There are FM chips in every old Sound Blaster compatible card - OPL2/3. You just need old enough PC or an old enough notebook with built-in sound card. There are a lot MS-DOS trackers for these chips, they works under Windows 9x as well.
I somehow forgot that YM2612 was actually used in one home computer - FM Towns. It is japanese and not imported anyway.
212 Dec 24, 2010 11:30 pm
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
Genesis can't play 16 bit samples.
Take a look at SunVox. It is free/cheap, it is available for few mobile devices, it has 2-op FM synth, filters, samples, etc.
213 Dec 24, 2010 8:37 pm
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
Developing costs are highly depends from what is required. Is it involves custom hardware (could seriously increase costs), how much features are needed and how complex they are (considering hardware limitations), which interface (generally text-based interface with a lot of hex numbers could be done much faster than something visual with knobs, graphs etc). Then approximation how much time the thing would take should be done, based on previous projects, multiplied to medium programmer's wage (it is $1200-1400/month here, lowest is 500, top are 2000+), and total price negotiated. I think, for this case it should be some certain price for some certain work done, not just payment for time spent, with payments in few parts, per milestones.
How much time it could take. TFM MM in very basic form, which allowed to make music, with simplest instrument editor, with pattern editor, without a lot of service functions including copy/paste, was made in less than a month (don't forget, it is an app for powerful PC, made with RAD tools, and it is FM only). Service functions were added in next three years, in few takes of 1-2 weeks of active work each - 80/20 rule in action. There was half of year between start of work and first public version, although active work was ~2 months, I guess. Considering there are no RAD tools for SMD, and it far less powerful than PC (so you can't do things in dumb or bruteforce way), my estimate, without thinking on details, is that you could expect some very basic thing done in a month, some usable in ~three months, and then everything depends from feature requests.
Also, you could check how much other native console trackers development took. Recent examples: NTRQ took 5 months from start to first public release, and Pulsar about 6 months, these projects were done in part time, but by very experienced man.
214 Dec 23, 2010 1:25 pm
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
I have nothing against suggestions, but please, look where I'm from first, Kickstarter and any PayPal-based things are out of question.
215 Dec 23, 2010 1:30 am
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
Atari ST has absolutely different and much simpler sound chip, which is also used in Amstrad CPC, MSX, ZX Spectrum, and some computers and consoles. Most of these computers has a lot of native trackers for it, there are tens of thousands of songs made for it.
There are no computers or other consoles that has exactly the same sound chip as Genesis. Probably it is actually custom OPN version made by Yamaha for Sega needs (they also made Genesis video chip, which was renumbered to Sega part number by some reason). There are some computers with other OPN chips, which are somewhat compatible (whole NEC PC-88 range has either YM2203 or YM2608), however they are all japanese, never were sold outside Japan, and I haven't ever heard about any musical software for japanese computers other than MML compilers. Never heard about any japanese tracker for any platform as well.
216 Dec 22, 2010 1:44 pm
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
To make things clear: I'm not interested in the donating way to pay things of this kind, and I'm not going to take any risks. If you seriously want me to make something custom/special like native MD tracker, you can get me as a freelancer - you provide all the specs, define how it looks, works, etc, we negotiate costs and shedule. You pay for everything (does not mean fully pre-paid work), and get what you asked for. Then you can do anything with the result, sell it, release it for free, keep it private, whatever.
If you can't go this way by any reasons, which is understandable, I would recommend to contact TmEE first, and learn about his plans on this - is he going to do it, what he going to do exactly, etc.
217 Dec 21, 2010 10:48 am
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
Why bother opening your mouth to say you could do it in the first place. lol
I just inform people that if someone really need the thing (a native tracker for Genesis), he has option to hire me for this work. I'm not going to do project of this scale, which I'm absolutely not need and never will use, for free. If someone thinks it is easy and want to get it for free or cheap - he has options to do it himself, or wait for indefinite time, etc. If someone thinks I could pay his needs, he has option too, guess which one.
218 Dec 21, 2010 2:16 am
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
Invest months of time doing nothing else, then invest another few thousands $ into making carts (do the math), then hope someone would buy it, then hope something will left after overseas shiping, etc. No, thanks.
219 Dec 21, 2010 1:26 am
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
God how I wish there was one.
Although I'm able to make one, I would never use it by myself, so I would only make it for some serious $, as it is a lot of work.
TmEE also had some plans on something native, but it is unknown when and how, he still haven't released his cross tracker yet (there was an alpha in 2007, and it was used to make music for Pier Solar).
220 Dec 20, 2010 12:39 pm
Re: Genesis ROM/Program for making music (67 replies, posted in Sega)
There are no native music editors for Genesis. There are few cross solutions, including trackers and MML compilers.
221 Dec 9, 2010 6:03 am
Re: Making TFC file (1 replies, posted in Sega)
Export a TFD from editor, then use TFMCOM from /replayers/ folder as any other command line utility - tfmcom yourfile.tfd, and you'll get TFC.
222 Dec 6, 2010 1:27 pm
Re: . (28 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)
Don't know, I've added my POKEs, and the sound is still there. I have no idea if I did it right, because emulator .. let's say, not too good. I can't check the memory location to ensure that the changes are applied indeed, and I see no way to check if the output comes from 2068 AY, not standart one.
POKEs should be added before last RANDOMIZE USR in line 2 (there are two).
223 Dec 6, 2010 12:03 pm
Re: . (28 replies, posted in Other Vintage Computers & Consoles)
Emulator does not work properly for me, even in 128K mode. The sound is high-pitched and jerky, almost complete mess. The same sound in TS2068 mode, so it probably always emulate standart AY ports.
224 Dec 5, 2010 5:56 am
Re: NES TEMPO CONSISTENCY? (7 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)
Tempo on consoles/old computers is derivied from the TV frames frequency, which is of course very consistent (otherwise the TV would not work). The problem is that you can only have tempos with resolution of 1/50 or 1/60 second (PAL/NTSC). These values are rounded, in fact it could be +- fraction of second, depending from console/computer. Exact values for the NES are 50.0070 and 60.0988.