Lines on Paper controller (Better sound) 256byteram 2026-09-21 | Lines on Paper controller (Better sound)
LED matrix for synth/guitar tuning 256byteram 2022-04-06 | Apologies in advance for the annoying sound!I found an LED matrix board in a box of things and improved on my previous attempt at a visual tuning indicator. The matrix allows for more than just the fundamental frequency to be tuned accurately.
LED chaser as a frequency reference (guitars and synths) 256byteram 2022-04-04 | I wanted a stroboscope tuner for my synth but they're out of my price range. So I came up with this. Not sure if the idea is already out there. I haven't searched. It's made out of spare parts and an ATMega168P, and could benefit from 16 LEDs rather than 8.
Telstra - Beyond the Boundaries (Foxtel promotional VHS) 256byteram 2021-01-09 | A promotional tape for the then new roll out of coaxial cable for Foxtel, ca 1996. Copyright belongs to the content holders.
Opal Field Gems (Promotional Video) 256byteram 2020-08-07 | Opal Field Gems in South Australia. This is a promotional U-Matic video tape. I do not claim copyright on the content. If the owner wishes to have the video removed, please contact me.
Royal Charity Performance, Adelaide, 1981 (with ads) 256byteram 2020-04-26 | I've had this Beta cassette for years. In the interests of posterity, I've uploaded it in its entirety. If the copyright holders (either Channel 7 or Channel 10, I'm not sure who - they switched in 1987) want this video removed, I will remove it. I am not monetising the content.My capture rig started to struggle around 2:21:00. I restarted the capture at the start of the ad break, so there's a glitch there. The video was played on a Sanyo Betacord VTC-9300P and stabilised with a Key West Big Voodoo TBC. I've upscaled it to 720p at 50 fps to try to emulate how it looks on a CRT.See how long you can stick with it!0:00:00 Ads0:00:34 News break - Bruce McAvaney & Keith Martyn0:01:43 Ads0:06:23 Special Presentation0:07:00 Royal Charity Performance0:10:03 Barry Crocker0:13:58 Ads0:16:29 Barry Crocker - Opening monologue0:19:28 Laura Mitchell - Another Suitcase in Another Hall0:23:07 John O'May - And the Money Kept Rolling In0:27:48 Ads0:30:22 Christie Allen - He's My Number One0:33:29 Christie Allen - Don't Put Out the Flame0:36:40 Ads0:38:13 Sir Robert Helpmann0:44:31 Emily Jeffries - Chopin - Fantaisie-Impromptu0:51:20 Jane Peters - Kroll - Banjo and Fiddle0:55:01 Ads0:58:22 The Australian Dance Theatre - Vangelis - Pulstar1:05:18 Thomas Edmonds - Serenade from the Student Prince1:09:25 Ads1:13:38 Julie Anthony - Fame (and impressions)1:30:13 End of Act 1 - Ads1:33:15 Tommy Tycho1:37:29 David Adkins Dancers1:40:41 Ads1:43:11 Kamahl1:56:10 Ads1:58:53 Colin Curtis - Pembroke Girl's Choir2:03:12 Barry filling in time2:06:32 Brian Porter - Annadelle Anthony - Violin2:11:32 Ads2:14:00 No Fixed Address - Black Man's Rights2:20:04 June Bronhill - These are a few of my favourite things2:21:30 Ads2:24:28 June Bronhill & Dennis Olsen - Noel Coward - That is the end of the news2:28:30 Dennis Olsen - Noel Coward - Mad Dogs and Englishmen2:31:54 June Bronhill - Climb Every Mountain2:35:39 Ads2:38:42 Barry Crocker - Camelot2:47:21 Barry Crocker - closing2:50:10 Credits
Analog 3D Raycaster (re-upload) 256byteram 2019-11-11 | This video vanished from YouTube for some reason. It was recorded in January 2018. The documentation is here: drive.google.com/open?id=1slncC7zeetj1p60YExDXzRKQC6r5GIFN
Kriesler Magi-Matic 79-3 television (ca 1961) 256byteram 2019-06-23 | This has been on the to-do pile for years. The CRT is only just acceptable unfortunately. Rejuvenating it bought the brightness up but it's still marginal. (Edit: I tried rejuvenating it again, which bought it back to the 'good' level on the meter). It's not the original CRT either. I'm going to try replacing the video amplifier tube as well. There are no transistors in this set.The tuner mechanism still needs work. The system is push activated, which switches on a motor to change channels. The whole mechanism is locked up with old grease, but given there's no analog television anymore it's not a huge issue. I just tune my RF modulator to the station it's stuck on. There's a remote control too, on a long cord. A button on top changes the channel and a slide switch on the side mutes the audio.Apologies for not uploading a video in months! I have been working on projects, but work is getting in the way.
Dual Octave SID (Parallax, direct capture) 256byteram 2018-08-19 | Parallel SIDs, one clocked at 2MHz, to give an octave effect. I think the SID struggles to count at 2MHz, so there are some dud notes.See youtu.be/LS3YdoPCtqE for more information.
Dual Detuned SID (Arkanoid, direct capture) 256byteram 2018-08-17 | A direct capture of an experiment I wanted to try. What happens when two SIDs are put into a Commodore 64, but with one running off its own clock? The expectation was the SIDs would play slightly detuned from each other, and that's exactly what happened. It can be used in mono to make the sound thicker (as shown here) or in stereo to give a stereo separation effect.The music starts at 1:16. Sorry for it being in monochrome, I'm afraid my VIC-II isn't very well. My joystick didn't want to work either so it took me a bit to start the game.The crystal oscillator runs at 1MHz. My PAL Commodore 64 is clocked at 0.98MHz. This is approximately a 2% increase so all sounds will have a corresponding pitch shift. A variable oscillator could be used instead of a crystal oscillator, which would give a pitch bend, fifth, octave, or any other interval effect depending on how it's used.
12dB/oct Vacuum Tube VCF (no semiconductors) 256byteram 2018-07-28 | A wobbly demonstration of a filter I designed. I'm not aware of anything that might be like this (I tend to work in a vacuum... no pun intended) so please comment if you're working or know of something similar. It'll do 24db/oct, however that'd need an additional four tubes which I don't have at the moment.The synthesizer I'm using is my DIY one I made in 2011. It's developed a fault where the oscillator CV won't go above a certain voltage, so there are a few dud notes in this demonstration.I might make a Hackaday Projects page for this.EDIT: hackaday.io/project/163761-vacuum-tube-synth-filter
Simple state variable VCF 256byteram 2018-07-15 | This is something I've been toying with in simulation for a bit, and I finally got around to putting it together.The schematic is a normal state-variable filter but the resistor elements of the filter cutoff have been replaced with diode bridges. Regular silicon rectifier bridges will do. They're controlled by a fourth op-amp which generates a balanced voltage to bias the diodes on and off without causing excessive CV feedthrough.The only major disadvantage of this circuit is its output amplitude is significantly lower than the input amplitude, but that can be corrected with a fifth op-amp to amplify the signal. This is needed because the diodes saturate if the signal is too loud.I wanted to keep the op-amp count down to four so a single op-amp package can be used. Most op-amps should work, though a TL074, TL084, etc is preferred.Typical output voltages are 0.5V peak. Op-amp 2 should have a 10Megaohm resistor across its capacitor for stabilisation.
Famicom Composite to RGB Decoder 256byteram 2018-06-29 | I'm experimenting with decoding the composite video from a Famicom's PPU to RGB. It'll never be as perfect as the NESRGB mod, but if I make this into a mod, it'll be a lot simpler to install. It needs four wires to connect it to the board - two for power, one from the PPU's video output, and one for the master clock oscillator.It works by breaking the video signal down to an equivalent of S-Video, using two filters. The chroma channel goes to a comparator to make it a digital (binary) frequency signal. The luma channel gets compared against four voltage thresholds on four comparators. The five signals are sent to an FPGA which decodes the chroma signal, using the master clock as a reference. That outputs one of 12 possible hues plus the absence of colour. Combined with the current luma value gives the combination of all possible colours, which are looked up in a table and sent to the RGB output.Apologies for the PotatoCam.The FPGA development board is a FleaFPGA Classic from fleasystems.com.The monitor is an NEC Multisync II running at 15kHz line rate.The games are Super Mario Brothers, Bomber Man II and Binaryland.
VAXstation 4000/60 running xlock screensavers 256byteram 2017-09-02 | It took about 20 minutes to compile xlock on this machine. Xlock is the predecessor to xscreensaver.I cut the audio out because there was some music in the background. Just in case YouTube stomps on it. Apparently it's piracy if you happen to have a barely intelligible and extremely noisy facsimile of a song that no one in their right mind would enjoy listening to in the background of a video that has nothing to do with music?
Wolf3D on a VAXstation 4000/60 (OpenVMS 7.3) 256byteram 2017-08-31 | So I pulled this thing out of the shed and fired it up so I can take it to the next Adelaide Retro Computing Group meeting when it's on.Wolfenstein 3D works on it but it has problems, such as bad keyboard input. Sometimes keys work, most of the time they don't. I might look through the source code and see what's going on. Notice how much screen space there is relative to the window!
Commodore 64 - Introduction to Programming - Level 1 256byteram 2017-08-19 | There is a copy of this on YouTube elsewhere but what a shame the tape has deteriorated. I'm uploading it for historical and educational purposes.
3D Raycaster in Analogue Electronics 256byteram 2017-08-03 | I wanted to see what it'd look like... it nearly works, but there's still a lot of noise.
Multifunction Polis Earthworks Trials, Gillman 1994 256byteram 2017-07-24 | The Multifunction Polis was a major infrastructure project in South Australia. This footage is of the earthworks trials phase that commenced in 1994.More information is available at https://crawford.anu.edu.au/pdf/pep/pep-283.pdf and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multifunction_PolisFound on a U-Matic cassette.
1947 Bedford Truck 256byteram 2017-06-30 | Going on a trip to the salvage yard. My phone kept on crashing so I didn't get a lot of footage.
Zenith Z90 256byteram 2017-05-31 | This was quite a find.Here's what I did to get it going:First I fixed the dry joints on the power supply board. This bought the monitor back to life. Nothing else needed to be soldered.CP/M booted but it complained about a read only file. This was the submit temporary file, which was somehow set to read only. I assembled a small program to change the file attributes of the file, then entered that into memory with the boot monitor. It was about 20 bytes.When I got a prompt, it would crash after pressing enter. I printed the CP/M source listing and started tracing through it. After a bit I noticed 256 bytes (one physical sector) worth of data was completely wrong on the third sector into CP/M, starting at D200h. CP/M itself starts at D000h. There wasn't much else I could do except enter the whole 256 bytes in manually with the boot monitor.I knew there was a problem however, because should I warm boot CP/M for any reason, it would overwrite the code I entered in memory. I made a backup copy of that data in memory just below CP/M in case that happened. It was just a short bit of code using the LDIR Z80 instruction.I was incredibly fortunate to find a disk sector editor on the A: partition of the hard drive, so I ran it and modified the faulty sector again manually, entering another 256 bytes.So now it's working.The system has a 2.048MHz Z80, 64kB RAM, 3-port serial card, a soft sector floppy controller, a 96 TPI floppy drive and a 10MB hard drive and associated bus interface. The system came with manuals for the internal cards, CP/M and Microsoft BASIC.I don't have the top cover on it because the fan is clogged up and won't spin. It's a 115VAC fan running off the transformer. The whole thing stunk of WD40 when I opened it...
TTL RGB to VGA scan doubler 256byteram 2017-05-21 | I was at the local retro computer meeting the other day and one of the guys was trying to interface the CGA video output to a VGA monitor with a Chinese 15kHz to VGA upscaler. It did work, but only if the picture didn't change. Otherwise the sync would drop out.I decided to have a go at making my own scan doubler. This one needs 2kB of 4-bit RAM (provided in the FPGA) to store a single line, which is then output twice in succession at double the speed. This gives a signal that's compatible with VGA.There is some sampling jitter, visible when I zoom in, because I'm running the board at 50MHz and the sample rate for CGA/EGA is 14.3181MHz. If I try it at a multiple of 27MHz I might have more luck.The machine is an NEC PowerMate 1 Plus 80286 with 4MB RAM and a 40MB hard drive. It has an EGA graphics card.I'm using a FleaFPGA development board from www.fleasystems.com, which is an excellent little board for this sort of thing.
Dick Smith Electronics Computer Package ad 1989 256byteram 2017-05-17 | Personally I think $1995 in 1989 for an XT class machine without a hard drive and monochrome graphics is a ripoff.
Telecom: Our Information - Its Our Business 256byteram 2017-05-13 | An information videotape discussing new security measures to protect information within Telecom.Copyright Telecom Australia. I'm uploading this for historical and information purposes. If the copyright holder wishes this to be removed, please contact me.
Telecom - Vision 2000 Customers Come First (1986) 256byteram 2017-05-13 | This is an information videotape from Telecom discussing the need to improve customer service. The last I heard, they're still working on it.Apologies for the terrible videotape skew. I had to adjust the tension on the VCR to its maximum. I didn't use a video frame buffer because it made it worse.Copyright 1986 Telecom Australia. I'm uploading this for historical and information purposes. If the copyright holder wishes this to be removed, please contact me.
Tube VCO and VCF 256byteram 2017-05-12 | Another low quality video. This is a Phantastron oscillator configured as an exponential VCO and a Sallen-Key topology VCF. I don't know where the line noise is coming from at the moment.Schematics to follow....The basic Phantastron circuit and theory is at archive.org/stream/MillmanPulseAndDigitalCircuits1956/Millman_Pulse_and_Digital_Circuits_1956#page/n237/mode/2up/search/phantastron
RF sine oscillator and VCA for synths 256byteram 2017-02-28 | Previous video is at youtube.com/watch?v=RsWG11KuvJQThe big improvement since last time is the circuit now enters nulling mode automatically when the note is off. When the key is released, the circuit switches to track the variable oscillator to the reference oscillator. When a key is pressed, that reference voltage is held to keep the circuit tuned. I adjust the reference oscillator at the end of the video to prove the point. The reference voltage can be seen moving up and down on the oscilloscope when the note is off. There's still a nasty pop when the note turns off so I might need to include something to silence it.Secondly, I added a voltage controlled amplifier (though it's really an RF gain control) which provides an input for an envelope generator.Currently the note stops when the key is released so I'll see if I can wire it up to detect when the envelope drops below a threshold before the oscillator enters nulling mode.
RF sine wave generator for synths 256byteram 2017-02-25 | Rough video... maybe I'll make a better one later.This is the transistor and IC incarnation of my previous vacuum tube synth oscillators. There are two RF oscillators, one is a fixed 120kHz reference, provided by a signal generator, and the other is a variable frequency Colpitts oscillator. The VFO is controlled by a control voltage input run through an exponential converter.The problem faced was trying to get the output to sit at zero Hertz when the frequency input is at zero Volts. The VFO can be higher or lower than the reference frequency and either case makes a sine wave. The further away from the reference frequency the VFO is, the higher the pitch. If the frequency isn't nulled, the tuning will be out, because there's a linear frequency offset on all notes.My solution is to have a button that does two things. It drives the CV input to a negative voltage which sets the exponential output to zero and secondly it connects the audio output through a sample and hold circuit back to the linear frequency input. This creates a phase locked loop. When the loop is opened to play a tone, the offset voltage is stored in the S&H. It's not perfect (as can be seen) but it means I might be able to make more than one oscillator and not have to null them all individually.
Playing Space Quest II on an Apple IIe 256byteram 2017-02-09 | I haven't seen an Apple //e running the original Space Quest series online, so I did this. I just play to the point where I die (i.e. the root monster) to give an idea of what the game is like. This is a direct capture from my Australian PAL revision //e.Interference on the microphone was pretty bad from the CRT so I noise reduced it as much as I could and compressed it a little. The vertical lines of interference aren't visible on the CRT. I expect they're caused by bus noise in the II aliasing against the sample rate of the capture card.Here are some differences I noticed from the PC version:It runs much slower when there are more than one moving objects on the screen (it's a 1MHz 65C02, give it a break)The speaker is CPU driven so when there are sound effects the whole game stops.Some of the graphics around the border seem to be cut off.Other than that it's an early version of Space Quest II. Later versions are more common on the PC so there are some differences in the game itself, such as when Roger is in the shuttle being taken away from the asteroid fortress.To get this game running, you will need to run Bag of Tricks on your Apple (after you've written the eight sides of the game to disks) and run the Init program. Make sure the option is set to preserve data, change the label of the first disk, front side to 001, back side to 002, disk 2 front to 003, back to 004 etc., writing changes to each disk.
Toshiba T1000 floppy drive fault 256byteram 2017-01-13 | Well I didn't think they could run that fast... It looks closer to 3000 rpm, not 300 rpm.
SAS-10 Adelaide ads 1982 256byteram 2016-10-20 | 0:00 Esso0:30 John Martin's1:00 McDonalds, GE prizes1:30 Esso1:58 Telecom Telex2:28 Kit-Kat2:58 Oil of Ulan3:58 Bic disposable shaver4:28 Savings Bank of South Australia5:12 Juicy Fruit chewing gum5:41 Yellow Pages6:11 Close Encounters of the Third Kind, first time on TV7:03 Pine-o-Clean7:32 Mars Bars8:02 Sara Dane closing, Esso8:22 Sara Dane ad for next broadcast9:02 Next on Ten9:11 Selsun anti-dandruff9:21 1982 Escort Cup9:51 Buster and Billie, Wednesday movie10:06 Clock - Australian Motors jingle10:20 "You can see it all on 10" - Benny Hill10:46 Esso11:13 Preen11:43 South Australian Film Corporation12:43 Treets13:12 Vicks VapoRub13:42 Balfours14:02 "The Letter" - Sunday night movie14:14 Savings Bank of South Australia14:57 Farmer's Union15:57 Subaru 4WD16:26 Esso16:55 Lux17:25 Aura laundry detergent17:55 John Martin's18:25 Olivetti Electronic Typewriters19:24 Kentucky Fried Chicken19:54 Stork Margarine20:22 "The Best of Parkinson in Australia"20:58 Savings Bank of South Australia21:41 Weet-Bix22:11 Le Cornu22:21 "The Wake of the Red Witch" Tuesday Movie22:37 Esso22:45 Sara Dane part 3 ad23:32 Next on 1023:42 Simpson23:52 "Escape to Victory" In cinemas
Tough New Laws Tobacco Industry ad late 1980s 256byteram 2016-10-19 | This was on a Beta tape. I'm guessing it's from 1988 because of the Channel 7 logo that's shown elsewhere on the tape. I can't find any references to the ad itself online. The Tobacco Act was introduced in 1989.
Channel 9 Ident 1985 (Adelaide) 256byteram 2016-10-18 | "Still the One!" Ident and surrounding announcements. The Nine logo zooms in on this one, rather than appearing from a starburst. Found on a Beta tape.
Telecom Computerphone ad, 1985 256byteram 2016-10-17 | This was on a Beta tape and I couldn't find it anywhere online. Uploaded because it's interesting.
Richard Zhang Colouriser applied to old films 256byteram 2016-10-11 | I've been experimenting with an automatic colouriser, based around Caffe from Berkeley (http://caffe.berkeleyvision.org) and the colouriser based on it from Richard Zhang et al (http://richzhang.github.io/colorization)The film is Killers From Space (1954) from archive.org/details/Killers_from_spaceThe Python script I mangled together uses multithreading to process as many images in parallel as the system can handle, provided there's enough RAM. This clip took about four hours to render on an i7 laptop.
Tube Bandpass filter with Reverb 256byteram 2016-09-20 | More experiments. The audio is recorded directly off the output and dubbed over the video to give the full effect. I tapped the reverb spring to get the timing right.
Vacuum Tube Bandpass Filter 256byteram 2016-09-19 | This is a simple circuit loosely based on the Trautonium's filter.Circuit diagram is here http://kaput.hopto.org/~thrashbarg/Bandpass.pngThe audio transformer is a 100V line transformer.Here's an FFT of a note. Plenty of intermodulation distortion there. http://kaput.hopto.org/~thrashbarg/Bandpass_fft.pngSome more samples are here. They're both just me playing my synth through it. The filter on the synth was bypassed. The spring reverb file is the filter put through an old reverb tank.dropbox.com/s/okpb3nskt8c5uc0/Bandpass.mp3?dl=0dropbox.com/s/xts98hiv2s8dslo/Bandpass_spring_reverb.mp3?dl=0
Philips Radio Restoration 256byteram 2016-09-07 | The back panel from this radio is missing so I don't know the model number.I replaced the wax capacitors, rectifier valve, tuning cord, light bulbs and added a fuse.
Apple IIc MockingBoard clone 256byteram 2016-05-26 | Demonstration of a MockingBoard clone I made for the Apple IIc.The current setup is ugly. The YM2149 is tacked into the 28 pin socket I've used. I only had one AY-3-8912 but this works. I'll get some more 8912's later.If there's enough interest I'll have some PCB's made up for it.
Apple IIc PAL adapter Double-HiRes mode 256byteram 2016-05-20 | I squashed a bug in the double hi-res mode which made it look even worse than this.The schematic for this adapter is at http://kaput.homeunix.org/II-PAL.pdf
Apple IIc DIY PAL adapter 256byteram 2016-05-19 | This is a revival of the IIc component adapter I made ages ago. I was looking at it and realised it was rubbish, so I designed a new one which outputs PAL instead (mmmm dot crawl). This is a direct capture from the unit.No unusual IC's are used, just regular TTL.Anyway, the schematic is herehttp://kaput.homeunix.org/II-PAL.pdf
Airvoyce Radiogram chassis & turntable on test bench 256byteram 2016-04-14 | I inherited my great-grandparent's radiogram. I'm not sure when they bought it but it would have been some time around 1950.
Theremin Synth Controller 256byteram 2016-04-02 | This is pretty much just the volume control circuit out of a Theremin, repurposed as a CV controller for a synthesizer.Never mind about my schematic. This one's much better: http://www.theremin.us/144/schematicp1.gif from http://www.theremin.us/144/144.htmMy original one would've been broadcasting everywhere.
MIDI (Voltage) Controlled Theremin 256byteram 2016-03-13 | Ok so it's tone deaf, and nearly impossible to tune accurately. It runs on the same technique as a Theremin, but with a voltage controlled (FM) pitch oscillator mixed with a reference oscillator.The timbre control feeds some of the audio output back into the control voltage input, which distorts the sine wave and produces harmonics.
AWA MagicTape machine ca 1951 256byteram 2016-03-10 | So I eventually got around to fixing this old lump. It's working pretty well now, though there's a rubber wheel in there that has a flat spot on it. I needed to replace a microphonic tube and the wax capacitors. This seems to have been made before audio tape was standardised because it runs the tape from right to left and the heads are on the outside. I put a twist in the tape to compensate. Running speed is fixed to 7 1/2 IPS. There's a power choke in there dated 1951, so that's a rough date of manufacture.Sorry about the air conditioning blowing on the mic.
