Not Quite Dead

I was feeling a bit defeated yesterday, perhaps a bit too much. I may be down, but I'm not totally out! Without a breakout board, my circuits may be a bit more tedious to make and they will require more care in transport. Nevertheless, I can still make a little noise...

Optimistic Tone

I started with a simple circuit, a 555 timer wired as an astable multivibrator. I am feeding the output into the CART line on the CoCo cartridge port, which is intended for use as an interrupt signal. As such, it is tied to the PIA which drives the FIRQ signal on the 6809. This circuit gives me a new timing source to use for programs on the CoCo!

I configured the 555 circuit to generate a continuous square(-ish) wave at approximately 4800 Hz. This would require quite a bit less service than the ~15.7 KHz Hsync signal provided by the CoCo's video chip, and it would still be fast enough to generate a wide range of useful tones and/or sound effects. To illustrate the point, I have a test program using this time source to service the 1-bit audio output on the CoCo in order to produce a lovely 2400 Hz tone.

Extended Play

So, at least I have the basis for some Retrochallenge play. With the current circuit, I might build a more flexible synthesizer or sound effects generator, or I might even expand to playback of sampled sound through the CoCo's DAC. Perhaps a simple game is in order? The possibilities are endless! There are at least a few possibilities, anyway...

So, what is next for my now improvised Retrochallenge entry? I'm unsure...I guess you'll just have to stay tuned!