aylet: Sounds across the Spectrum

I never had a ZX Spectrum. I never had a *00-series Atari computer either. I spent my formative years in front of a C64, as I have oft mentioned, and so a lot of the developments or innovations on other hardware is a little lost on me.

I can appreciate attempts to preserve the musical artistry of a generation or architecture though, so aylet is interesting to me.

2014-12-13-6m47421-aylet

So if the genius of the General Instrument AY-3-8910 sound chip escapes my appreciation, aylet is still fun to work with.

This might look a little like stymulator to you, and that was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. I didn’t take the time to dig through the history of aylet and stymulator, but it may be that they share the same author or code tree.

Key controls are on the screen, with switches for track control and a few other options. aylet may not be as visually attractive as some other players, but it knows its audience and does not disappoint.

aylet is in Debian but not in Arch/AUR; I compiled what you see there with the original source code from the Debian package page and had no problems. I needed alsa-oss again to keep it working with “modern” sound arrangements though. 😉

Oh, I almost forgot: You’ll need some sound files, of course. Start here and see what you can find. I am sure there’s something in there that will trigger the nostalgia region of your brain. 😉

8 thoughts on “aylet: Sounds across the Spectrum”

    1. K.Mandla Post author

      I should have sidplay on my list. I’ve had it around forever, and even keep some of the hvsc collection locally for fun. Thanks for reminding me. 😉

      1. Ander GM

        Oh, and about C64… a tip.

        Compile vice against SDL, and disable the GTK options.
        AUR package for Arch Linux:
        https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/vice-sdl/
        ##compiling options:
        ./configure –prefix=/usr –enable-fullscreen –enable-sdlui –with-sdlsound –enable-ethernet –disable-ffmpeg
        #run this on bash under the framebuffer
        export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=fbcon #or directfb
        run vice in the same tty, and enjoy X-less C64 emulation on the framebuffer 😀

        Also, a nice game to play on the C64: http://www.c64games.de/phpseiten/spieledetail.php?filnummer=1357

      2. K.Mandla Post author

        I did that once a very long time ago, but the machine I was using was underpowered and the results were disappointing. I shall try it again with a stronger machine. 😉

      3. Ander GM

        If the machine is slow enough, consider setting up VIce’s resolution to 640×480 with no scaling effects, 11025 khz sound rate and 1/2 framerate (frameskip). And, of course, a high end SID emulation taxes too much the CPU, you can set a simple one.

        I can send you a low-end (but totally playable) sdl-vice config file if you want 😀

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