Swedish Engineer Creates Playable Accordion From 2 Commodore 64 Computers (arstechnica.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In late October, a Swedish software engineer named Linus Akesson unveiled a playable accordion -- called "The Commodordion" -- he crafted out of two vintage Commodore 64 computers connected with a bellows made of floppy disks taped together. A demo of the hack debuted in an 11-minute YouTube video where Akesson plays a Scott Joplin ragtime song and details the instrument's creation.
A fair amount of custom software engineering and hardware hackery went into making the Commodordion possible, as Akesson lays out in a post on his website. It builds off of earlier projects (that he says were intentionally leading up to this one), such as the Sixtyforgan (a C64 with spring reverb and a chromatic accordion key layout) and Qwertuoso, a program that allows live playing of the C64's famous SID sound chip.
So how does the Commodordion work? Akesson wired up a custom power supply, and when he flips the unit on, both Commodore 64 machines boot (no display necessary). Next, he loads custom music software he wrote from a Commodore Datasette emulator board into each machine. A custom mixer circuit board brings together the audio signals from the two units and measures input from the bellows to control the volume level of the sound output. The bellows, composed of many 5.25-inch floppy disks cut and taped into shape, emit air through a hole when squeezed. A microphone mounted just outside that hole translates the noise it hears into an audio envelope that manipulates the sound output to match. The Commodordion itself does not have speakers but instead outputs its electronic audio through a jack.
A fair amount of custom software engineering and hardware hackery went into making the Commodordion possible, as Akesson lays out in a post on his website. It builds off of earlier projects (that he says were intentionally leading up to this one), such as the Sixtyforgan (a C64 with spring reverb and a chromatic accordion key layout) and Qwertuoso, a program that allows live playing of the C64's famous SID sound chip.
So how does the Commodordion work? Akesson wired up a custom power supply, and when he flips the unit on, both Commodore 64 machines boot (no display necessary). Next, he loads custom music software he wrote from a Commodore Datasette emulator board into each machine. A custom mixer circuit board brings together the audio signals from the two units and measures input from the bellows to control the volume level of the sound output. The bellows, composed of many 5.25-inch floppy disks cut and taped into shape, emit air through a hole when squeezed. A microphone mounted just outside that hole translates the noise it hears into an audio envelope that manipulates the sound output to match. The Commodordion itself does not have speakers but instead outputs its electronic audio through a jack.
Aka LFT (Score:4, Informative)
LFT has been active in the demo scene for quite a while, and I've had the joy of hearing the chipophone live, but he's also done some serious stuff too, such as this winning entry from the Underhanded Code contest: https://linusakesson.net/progr... [linusakesson.net]
Re:Aka LFT (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh, he's come a long way with his musical skills, but I just wanted to highlight that not all of his projects are artistic and/or entertainment.
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.Funny to see when geek-streams cross. So many people have sent us notices about this project in the last week! Here in the accordion/geek world, it's remarkable seeing how much attention its gotten. An inspiration to tinkerers everywhere.
Classical and ragtime aren't that unusual undertakings for accordion I don't think. But his use of The Sting font is very witty. Most viewers aren't aware of the cheat-code that chromatic button accordion players have when converting a computer keyboard to play music. The
notice Americans - how to pronounce SOLDER (Score:1, Interesting)
notice how solder is pronounced?
there is a fucking L in the word.....
Re:notice Americans - how to pronounce SOLDER (Score:5, Funny)
How is "Gloucestershire" supposed to be pronounced? You're complaining about one little letter getting innocently mislaid; meanwhile the Brits drop them by the trainload!
And what's with the French dropping all those final consonants? Why put them there if you're not going to say them? There are starving children in Africa who would LOVE to have those consonants!
And don't get me started about the Germans...
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Correctly.
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German spelling is more or less regular.
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Hey, of all the languages listed, German is spoken as written.
If you want to know insane, how about French numbers? Just saying a damn number is like a math quiz! Four times 20 plus 19 for 99? C'mon.
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That is French from France.
French use soixante-dix (sixty ten) for 70, quatre vingts (four twenty) for 80 and quatre vingts dix (four twenty ten) for 90. But the Swiss and the Belgians are more reasonable. In Belgium they use septante for 70 and nonante for 90. The Swiss do the same and even use huitante or octante for 80.
I am told that octante is regional only.
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I forget the details, but the animated series Reboot had a character ("Mike the TV") who had a catch phrase "ninety-nine, ninety-nine, ninety-nine!". (a reference to retail prices often ending in "99") Since Reboot was made by a Canadian company, they had to make a French version too.
In the French version, I'm guessing they had to trim other dialog in order for his catch phrase to fit within the time slot...
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How is "Gloucestershire" supposed to be pronounced?
It sounds very similar to Worcestershire... why do you ask?
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We took the "l" out of solder when you stuffed an extra "i" into Aluminum
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Fred Armisen should bring him to Documentary Now!
Big fucking whoopie (Score:5, Funny)
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Is this from token ring? Or some other source?
News for Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
The Definition of a Gentleman (Score:3)
Someone who knows how to play the accordion, but chooses not to.
Cute (Score:2)
Cute. And definitively news for nerds.
I watched the video and was surprised to find the sound not very SID-like. It sounds more like a 8 bit Japanese console chip music. But maybe it is just me. And i still listen to SID music regularly these days.
Nice that he mentioned he didn't use "good" floppy disks.
Wonder What Adrian Would Say to That (Score:2)
Accordion? (Score:2)
I believe this should have been posted under the "Crimes Against Humanity dept"
He was so preoccupied with whether he could... (Score:2)
...he never stopped to think about whether he should.
Weird Al (Score:2)
I want to see him play it!