The Chipophone — an 8-Bit Chiptune Organ 84
adunk writes "Linus Åkesson has built an 8-bit synthesizer inside an old electric organ case. 'All the original tone-generating parts have been disconnected, and the keys, pedals, knobs and switches rerouted to a microcontroller which transforms them into MIDI signals. Those are then parsed by a second microcontroller, which acts as a synthesizer.' The Chipophone is perfect for playing classics such as the Super Mario Bros in-game music or Rob Hubbard's Spellbound. A description of the build process, with photos, is available."
Re:Blasphemous (Score:2, Insightful)
Better restored as a synthesizer than in a landfill.
Leisure Suit Larry (Score:2, Insightful)
This synth is great, but it isn't a REAL synthesizer unless it can adequately play the theme music to Leisure Suite Larry. :)
Re:scandinavian again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Torvalds is Finnish; Finland is strictly not Scandinavian. Scandinavia is the peninsula with Sweden and Norway.
Re:Blasphemous (Score:4, Insightful)
Throwaway culture or no, some things just aren't worth it.
Re:Blasphemous (Score:1, Insightful)
He didn't throw it away, he recycled it. He could've gone out and bought a cheap MIDI keyboard and hooked it up to a softsynth, but instead he reused something he already had in a novel way. How is that throwaway culture? Reduce, reuse, recycle.
The guy is amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, a couple of years back I was thinking of a similar project: use an Atmel AVR 8 bit (RISC) microcontroller to create a sound chip, controlled by MIDI. Well, this Linus dude did that, and MUCH, MUCH more! Pluse, the guy is a great musician (he can actually play a full organ, which in addition to hand, needs also foot coordination), and can play the whole of Rob Hubbard's Spellbound entirely by heart [youtube.com].
In a perfect world, this guy should be famous, make millions, and sportsmen like Tiger Woods would be happy to mow his lawn :o) (that's my geek utopian dream).
Re:Blasphemous (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me clarify at this point that organs like these are not particularly rare. They were mass produced in the seventies, and most thrift stores in Sweden have at least one of them on display.
Re:scandinavian again. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's still wrong, and the Cold-War invention "Nordic countries" should perhaps be preferred if Finland must be included. Scandinavia is definitely not only a geographically separate entity, but a separate cultural-linguistic whole as well. Just listen to the Swedish People's Party folks who insist on us having to integrate to Scandinavia because it's so damned special compared to *us* (of course, an alternate variant of this argument is the idea that nothing except Swedishness exists, and the wrong kind of people will be allowed into the club after enough manipulation into accepting the idea themselves).
Re:Different approach to cheap great music (Score:3, Insightful)
That also sounds pretty cool. Might I suggest making a video of it and uploading it to YouTube?
Re:Two words : (Score:2, Insightful)
no wait, on second thought, i wouldnt want to meet that moron.