![You suck at protoshop. No, you [i]really[/i] oo.](http://blog.gg8.se/images/you-suck-at-photoshop-you-really-do-your-awful.png)
When you see it… (Wii commmercial)
September 30th, 2008
Click the brick to see the commercial. Have some patience, and watch the whole thing!
FiSH
September 28th, 200804:53 -!- FiSH: Received DH1080 public key from omniuwo, sending mine… 04:53 -!- FiSH: Key for omniuwo successfully set!
TJ, if you’ve found your way here, (presumably through video statistics) here’s the reason I wanted you to change to a lower-case i: FiSH is the name of an encryption plugin for IRC conversations in the software irssi, using a variant of the Blowfish encryption algorhithm. And then I have this OCD kind of thing, and I noticed how they looked alike. Go figure.
If you actually found your way here, congratulations, have a fish stick cookie.
If you are not TJ, this post will not make sense.
An actual circuit bent Gameboy this time :o
September 28th, 2008The last time I thought someone had bent a Gameboy, I was wrong. It was a fake.
This time, coming from SeanBroccoli, it’s for real, but the bend is simply a freeze button, which is not very interesting. This is not Sean’s fault of course - it’s the Gameboy’s. The GB is a microcomputer, and almost anything will make it crash rather than produce interesting circuit bent effects. If the CPU comes across any invalid CPU instructions, it will simply lock up. The NES can handle a little more action, but that’s because in most cases you’re targetting the graphics chip rather than the CPU when bending it. (I think)
Even my old laptop, a Thinkpad 600E did a better job bending itself. <– Click that link for some tasty glitches.
A better way to do it is to use some GB music making software like LSDj, Nanoloop or perhaps PocketNoise which is an art project by Christoph Kummerer which has a glitchy almost circuit bent look to it. If Chistoph could just reply to my mails… :/
So yeah, if I were to “bend” a Gameboy myself, I’d write custom software for it, or use existing Gameboy music software.
A couple of side notes: The first drone sound is actually an example of the Gameboy’s flexible PRNG (Pseudo Random Noise Generator) Without going too much into technical details, it’s a digital noise generator that can do sort of melodic noise.
As for clocking the Gameboy and other stuff, super-bender Gijs has a few tips: one two. There’s even a way to clock it freely to any frequency using a component called LTC1799. Check derWarst’s video for some info on that.
So I hope you learned something new today!
New NitroTracker tune: Mysrysare
September 27th, 2008
NitroTracker is an FT2 style music tracker for the Nintendo DS. Download it by clicking the image above.
Say hello to a new, although crappy and slightly unfinished NitroTracker song, Mysrysare!
Listen on 8bitcollective
Download the .XM Please, only play the XM in NitroTracker, since the volume envelopes will be fucked up in other players.
Made for sybi0t’s NitroTracker compilation.
Vote for CombatDave’s Reckoner remix!
September 25th, 2008
Radiohead has a remix contest. CombatDave made an awesome chip remix of it. You need to vote for it by clicking the + sign. (You won’t be sorry if you click the play button first though. 
)
From #8bc:
02:18 < combatdave> http://www.radioheadremix.com/remix/?id=150 02:18 <@Dauragon> woot 02:18 < combatdave> guys PLEASE vote for that 02:18 < combatdave> and get your mums and sisters and aunties and dogs to vote too 02:18 <@Dauragon> i wont if it SUCKS 02:19 <@Dauragon> aw man dave this is SAWEEEEEET
Cencoroll - New awesome looking animé with chippy theme song
September 24th, 2008I found this during my random Youtube explorations. What first caught my attention was the chippy theme song. The second thing that caught my attention was the smooth, detailed animation and apocalyptic monster scenes. From the little pieces of information I could gather from the video and the Babelfish translation, it’s about monsters with some mechanical functions/abilities that invade the earth all of a sudden, not totally unlike Evangelion. Don’t quote me on the details though.
Some form of apocalyptic technospiritualism probably. Which is what the Japanese are best at, aren’t they?
For those who are wondering what the Youtube title says: センコロール（トレーラー）／動画革命東京. The first portion is Katakana and describes English words: Cencoroll (Trailer) and the second portion is Kanji for Anime Innovation Tokyo. (The production company)
Wikipedia says the series was expected to be released in 2008, and the official site was last updated in 2006. Hopefully there will be news soon. Ureshii team, if you see this, please consider subbing this animé!
Gameboy Circuit Diagram, GB development wiki/forum and som breaking news
September 20th, 2008
I’m writing this post because every once in a while, people end up here when googling for thing like “Gameboy circuit” or “Gameboy schematic”. This is why this post is placed in the category circuit bending, so that people will find it.
If you googled for that, here’s probably what you’re looking for:
Gameboy DMG schematics
SuperGameboy SGB schematics
A word about that wiki linked above. It’s a Gameboy development wiki that I’m hosting together with a Gameboy development forum. It’s a narrow subject, and the forum it’s typically low traffic. But if you do have questions about Gameboy software development, feel free to drop by the forums and ask.
In other news:
1) The GBC bootstrap is about to be dumped. What is the GBC bootstrap, you may wonder… (If you’re not into low level software development, you’ll likely not understand the following) The bootstrap is the vey first piece of code that runs on any (Z80 type) Gameboy when it boots up. It checks that the header checksumsare correct and displays the Nintendo logo. This tiny piece of code is only 256 bytes big. For you GB developers out there, the bootstrap is the reason why the entry point is $100 and not $0. The reason why this piece of code is interesting is of pure curiosity, and because it’s the last undocumented secret of the Gameboy.
5 years ago, Neviksti managed to dump the bootstrap from the DMG. (The original Gameboy) Read about it here. The news I have today is that the corresponding bootstrap ROM for the GBC is about to be dumped. And in fact it’s not just a 256 byte area located at $0-$FF but to other memory areas sized 512 bytes and 1792 ($700) bytes. These are believed to be storage for the the big “Gameboy” logo shown on CGB’s during bootup and palettes for colorizing monochrome games.
At this point I can’t tell you who’s working on dumping the bootstrap ROMs (At that person’s request) but hopefully I will be able to distribute the contents of the bootstrap ROMs when they have been dumped.
2) The other breaking news is that dwedit and Palmertech, have, at least partially succeeded in booting GBC games on a GB micro by doing a special software trick. At the very least they’ve managed to enter GBC mode. I’m not sure whether they succeeded in actually running GB code after the mode switch, but they’ve managed to make it run the GBC bootstrap. (In principle the same bootstrap as mentioned above) I’ve tried the hack too, ona GBA 1st gen and a GBA SP, and both showed a black screen but played the startup sound. But I’m trying to contact dwedit for more info, and I’ll try to do my own research on the subject, so expect to hear more about it.
For now, check this thread on pH if you’re interested: http://boards.pocketheaven.com/viewtopic.php?p=49041
Jeskola Buzz Beta version released after a decade!
September 16th, 2008Jeskola Buzz is a music tracker that has been abandoned for about a decade but has had a hardcore fan base which has hacked and reverse-engineered the software to make it usable. The reason it was abandoned was because the creator’s hard drive crashed, and all Buzz source code files with it. Jeff Jeskola (That’s not his real name, but I pretend it is) has left this notice on the front page:
I'm currently trying to reconstruct Buzz from the older backups I have. The
latest partial backup is from about 6 months before the crash. Unfortunately a
lot of important stuff was implemented after that, which is why I didn't try to
do this earlier.See the changelog for current status. The biggest features that are missing are:
- SampleIO support (SF2 loading in wavetable)
- Aux bus
- Built-in machines, most importantly the mixer
Hopefully the final JB version will be stable enough to use. If so I’ll start using it. (again) I’ve tried previously, but I’ve been too lazy to deal with all the bugs and quirks in the software.
Check it out here:
Red Pill: http://jeskola.net/buzz/beta/ According to the dirlist the files were last updated 4 days ago, and hopefully the development will keep up!
Blue Pill: http://buzzmachines.com/ Download the old versions of the softwares, and accompanying hack and plugs.
Korg DS-10 track for the Diplodocus compo
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Oh, I’ve totally forgot to mention it here. So here comes the announcment, a month an a half too late. I made a track for the Diplodocus pirate Korg DS-10 compilation on mp3death. It’s called 1hora, meaning 1 hour, the time limit for the compo. (It was meant to be a competition, but ended up being a compilation) It’s a dirty, crappy trance tune.
It’s available from the Diplodocus page by clicking 44meg votepack.
If you need some pirate DS-10 for your NDS flash cartridge, look no further: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4317273/[NDS]KORG_DS-10_Synthesizer.zip
Yet another reason why Japan is awesome…
September 14th, 2008This just in, the Japanese magazine 大人の科学 (Otona no Kagaku, meaning Science for Adults) attached to the magazine, not just a PCB, but a complete synthesizer kit, including a front panel. The synth, Gakken Analog Synthesizer SX-150, is a simple stylophone-like thing with a resonant filter (With only an on/off resonance setting 
) an envelope and and an LFO.
Sometimes magazines will give you a PCB. A couple of years ago, for example, the Swedish computer magazine Datormagazin attached a PCB where you would solder 8 or 16 LEDs onto in an arc shape, resembling a speed meter. The whole thing would be controlled with a PIC chip via the serial port. The electronic magazine Elektor frequently attach a PCB’s for simple projects too.
But here we have a somewhat complete DIY synthesizer kit, that just begs to be modded. The reason why Otona no Kagaku is doing this in the first place is because they are doing a synthesizer chronicle special issue. This is issue is a it more expensive than a usual magazine, priced at 3360 Yen (Abut US$30) It may be ordered online from their homepage but sadly enough only inside Japan.
Below is a video made by MakeZine. I’m noticing two things:
1) It sounds really durty and groovy.
2) The guy who made the video is called Collin Cunningham. I wonder if he’s related to Chris Cunningham. You know, the guy who directed the videos for all time classics like Come to Daddy and Windowlicker.
SX-150 button mod from Collin Cunningham on Vimeo.
Through Trash_Audio and MakeZine.
Another reason why Japan is awesome: The Automatic Mario Music Video!
