[Microbit-Python] More musical silliness

[Michael]

It's possible. The micro:bit as it stands now is much more capable than the
prototype device that I built. However the prototype I built was built
around the Atmel 32u4 for the simple reason that it's a very similar to the
Atmel 328P. The reason I mention that is because for that I created a
singing "cat piano" for my daughter a few years ago. That used PCM encoded
WAV files - one per key, hard coded in program data. The wav files were
8Khz 8bit mono files, which then output to a speaker.

I reused the same technique to make a Harry Potter sorting hat for a Harry
Potter themed birthday party later the same year. Videos of these things
aren't online for personal reasons.

I don't have the time at this instant to rewrite these for micro:bit, and
haven't raised these previously because I didn't want to derail the really
cool stuff going on here.

(This list will go public at some point, so I don't really want to post a
link to the video for the cat piano here, but happy to send it directly to
those curious)

In case it's useful to anyone, I've pushed the code for the cat piano here:

https://github.com/sparkslabs/catastrophene

The code for the harry potter sorting hat is here:

https://github.com/sparkslabs/sortinghat

If useful, cool. If useful just as inspiration for *later* (and I really
would suggest *later* :o), that's cool.

It's worth noting that it should be possible to directly drive a composite
video display as well, since that's possible to do with the Atmel 32C4
which is again lower power than we have available for the micro:bit.

All that said though, on the Computing At School forums I saw the following
query today:

> The game could do with having sound effects. Anyone know
> of an easy way to attach a small speaker to a Micro:bit and
> generate sound effects? The only thing I’ve seen so far is the
> Kitronik “Don’t Steal My Micro:bit Alarm” project which uses a
> buzzer with simple ‘on’ or ‘off’ control.

When micropython gets out there, people are going to be excited by what's
already working here. (I know I am :-) )

We don't need to make it perfect immediately, just leave the door open to
the possible.

For example, in Star Trek 2, when just before Spock goes into the engine
room, Leonard Nimoy was asked by the director Nick Meyer to say "Remember"
in a mind meld fashion to DeForest Kelley (McCoy). (I'm carefully avoiding
spoilers for those who haven't seen these things :-) )

That wasn't actually in the script, but Nick Meyer had done enough TV to
understand how to add a place where a wedge could be placed to open new
doors. Likewise, I don't think we need to worry about bit banging wav files
at this stage or implementing polyphony, but leaving the door open, that's
cool.


Michael.

On 15 October 2015 at 22:03, Nicholas H.Tollervey <ntoll at ntoll.org> wrote:

> On 15/10/15 20:02, Larry Hastings wrote:
> >
> >
> > This guy wrote a simple MOD tracker for the TI 82 calculator:
> >
> >     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6G0CnBSWVk
> >
> > I'll save you a trip to Wikipedia: that's got a 6Mhz Z80, an 8-bit
> > processor.  And he's getting /four/ voices out of it, not to mention
> > effects.
> >
> > Gentlemen, our monophonic bleeping and blooping just got TOLD.
> >
> >
> > Anybody know an audio rendering specialist?
> >
>
> That thud you heard in the distance... that was my jaw hitting the floor.
>
> ZOMG etc... :-)
>
> Nice find Larry, nice find..! I wonder if/how this is possible on the
> micro:bit...
>
>
>
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