On Wednesday, October 16, 2002, at 04:31 , John Teffer wrote: > JPG viewer on a stock C64: > > http://www.ffd2.com/fridge/jpeg/index.html
Hm... it works on an EMULATOR... but I'd love to see if it could work on an actual Commodore 64... If it did, I would be astonished. I am astounded even by this "theoretical" test of the software! I knew the 64 was a fantastically powerful computer for an 8-bit machine, but I had no idea it could be pushed THIS far. If a 64 can disply a JPG image, it might be possible to write a simple web browser program under GEOS that would actually display inline images. No telling exactly how the 64 would render the pages, but theoretically speaking... > And I've seen C64 Demo programs that display images that look like they > are > using Hundreds of colors. I think that there are two main programming > tricks to do this (these are just off the top of my head, and could be > somewhat to completely wrong): Whether you're wrong or not, the fact is that programmers have been forcing the 64 to do things it wasn't "designed" to do almost ever since the machine became popular with code tricks much like the ones you describe. There were some of the simpler "trick" programs I even understood much of the theory behind, and it was amazing what you could get the 64 to do by manipulating registers and cutting into system timing and interrupts. >> And an MP3 player? The 64 has no >> sound card, and its processor can't even APPROACH the SLOWEST sample >> speed you can run an MP3 at. > > Hmm, I know I remember reading about an MP3 player for some old > computer, > but now that you test me I can't find one. Will you settle for a > hardware > MP3 player for your C64? (Or an IDE hard drive, CD-ROM, Ethernet card, > etc.) Well sure, that would be pretty impressive in and of itself... but I would be even MORE impressed if the 64 could run an MP3 in SOFTWARE and could make it even halfway intelligible. > What if you wrote a C64 program that played MP3s as SID "music" rather > than > digital sound? I mean... MP3s are the JPGs of the audio world, they > don't > represent an exact audio file bit-for-bit, but rather give a general > overall > picture of the sound wave. Could it be possible to make a program that > converted those general overall sound wave pictures into the nearest > possible SID chip instructions? Interesting to think about at least. I > wonder what it would sound like. I doubt it. Frequencies in non-electronic music are rarely precise enough to make such a program work. It would probably produce something that has only superficial resemblenece to the real thing, WAY out of key. > There was also text-to-speech software for the C64. My favorite was SAM (Software Automatic Mouth). I came across references to it during my nostalgia binge. It was also available for the Atari, Amiga and MACINTOSH. From what I gather, the speech synthesizers built into present day Macintosh are almost direct decendents of the original SAM. Very coolidge. :) > I had a program that > used the C64 as an alarm clock, shouting (customizable) increasingly > aggressive warnings at you every time you hit the snooze button. What kind of warnings, if I may ask? :) > Have you downloaded a C64 emulator yet? Of course. Power 64 is probably the best, especially among the OS X native ones. Unfortuantely, as I haven't registered the app (and can't afford to at the moment), my Commodore 64 sessions only last ten minutes... :/ > Emulation is one thing, but > you just can't beat the real thing. Yeah. I wish I could've kept my old 64, but I just didn't have anywhere to keep it. If I get a new computer, I have no choice. The old one has to go to make room for the new. :( I still have one part for my old 64, though. I kept the modem. Why? Briefly, I used it to experiment with the Commodore 64 to see if it could still communicate with "modern" computer bulletin boards (back in 1996). It worked fine, and I met my fiancee on one of those boards through the 64. So the purhcase of that modem brought me to my fiancee. So, silly as this might seem, that modem has great sentimental value. So did the 64, actually... but I just didn't have the space to keep it. But at least I was able to salvage the modem for sentimental value. John A. Ardelli Owner/Moderator BIFIDA-L: The Original Spina Bifida Discussion List The Crystal Corner - The Original Dark Crystal Discussion List -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
