The Oric-1/Atmos computers (released: 1983) were a wonderful 8-bit series of computers which included some nice synthesizer capabilitiies in the form of the AY-3-8912 sound chip.
soundtoy gives you a way of experimenting with the synthesizer of your Oric-1/Atmos.
It does this by giving you a means of loading the address of 14 registers, and then calling the onboard Oric "SPLAY - Sound Play" (#FA86) function, to be played.
From the ORIC ROM Disassembly, comments for SPLAY (#FA86):
"This routine takes X and Y as the low and high halves of the start address of a table to send data to the sound chip from. 14 bytes are sent to the 8912 starting with register 0 and working up in order until register D. The data from the table is used starting from the low address..."
So, to use this in BASIC it would be nice to just put the address of 14 bytes of DATA into #00(LO)/#01(HI) with POKE, and then CALL #B000, which will prepare X and Y for #FA86 .. so we need a small 'loader' for the X/Y registers
We use some assembly to set up the register address for the call to SPLAY (#FA86)
.org $B000 ; Example start address in RAM
SOUNDROUTINE:
LDX $00 ; Load low byte of sound data address from zero-page ($00)
LDY $01 ; Load high byte of sound data address from zero-page ($01)
JSR $FA86 ; Jump to the sound routine in ROM (#FA86)
RTS ; Return to BASIC
An example, in BASIC, of using the ORIC SPLAY command (#FA86) to play sound effects, which includes the above 'loader' code:
0 ?"SOUNDHAK:"
1 ?"e.g. POKE#00,#LO:POKE#01,#HI:CALL#B000"
2 FORI=#B000TO#B009:READA:POKEI,A:NEXT:REM $B000-$B009
3 DATA #AE,#00,#00,#AC,#01,#00,#20,#86,#FA,#60
4 REM PING EXPLODE ZAP..
6 POKE#00,#A7:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT65
8 POKE#00,#B0:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT85
10 POKE#00,#C0:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT75
11 REM ..AND FROM ROM: FAA7,FABD,FAD3,FB10..
12 POKE#00,#AA:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT100
13 POKE#00,#BD:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT20
14 POKE#00,#D3:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT40
15 POKE#00,#10:POKE#01,#FB:CALL#B000:WAIT80
16 POKE#00,#BD:POKE#01,#FA:CALL#B000:WAIT10
17 POKE#00,#75:POKE#01,#FB:CALL#B000:WAIT20
18 POKE#00,#10:POKE#01,#FB:CALL#B000:WAIT24
19 CALL#B000
20 GOTO 12
soundToy can be used to discover the addresses of cool sounds, and these can then be used in BASIC for a wide array of purposes .. sound effects, ui prompts, annoying alert sounds, maybe even some songs could be written ..
Note that soundToy also has a hack/playground for the HIRES mode, where strange things are happening - eventually the sound exploration and HIRES colour synthesis aspects of soundToy will be integrated somehow, to make it an explosion of colour and sound, but for now things aren't quite wired up while the fun details are being played with ..
V0.0.1 - Basic first version - use to explore the Oric ROM data to use as seeds to the 8192 synthesizer registers. Use 'j' and 'k' keys to step through ROM addresses to listen to the various 'presets' available in your Oric - use the '?' key to get help and some example addresses to try out.
V0.0.2 - Added HIRES video synth mode. TODO: connect both synthesizers in pleasing, absttract ways.
V0.0.3 - Exploring the RANDOM nature of things. The colour-bar that is generated in HIRES ("G") mode of soundtoy, represents a playground of colourful 'sprites' which have been pre-filtered to ensure no attribute colour-clash occurs when they are placed adjacent to each other .. At this stage, I am exploring/hacking around, and things don't quite work properly yet, but the controls are there to drive into interesting territory.
Lets hear of your discoveries! :)
-- seclorum
