Fixed variable storage

[deraudrl]

Later on the Atari 520 I already was using a function-driven basic (way ahead of its time, but forgot the name), but learned to save on RAM (using nibbles instead of bytes and bitmasks and such weird stuff) to realize a full-featured 3-track "Tracker", that used the in-built OSCs to create the sounds. 3 mono tracks of realtime processed sounds! Who would even spend a second on something like that today?

Heh. Anybody here old enough to recognize the phrase "line printer music"?

That was where you fed a block of punch-cards into a mainframe, and the printout made the chains in the line-printer 'ring' to make notes to play a song.

[trogluddite]

Heh. Anybody here old enough to recognize the phrase "line printer music"?

For anyone who hasn't encountered this before - feast your ears!... YouTube: Rocky's Printer - Eye of the Tiger on a dot matrix printer.

Back when I used to be a CNC machine programmer/operator, I quite often used to know that something wasn't right because the machine wasn't "singing" the tune that it was supposed to.

[tulamide]

For anyone who hasn't encountered this before - feast your ears!... YouTube: Rocky's Printer - Eye of the Tiger on a dot matrix printer.

Don't you dare forgetting the greatest orchestra of all time - The Floppotron

Here performing "Beat it" by Michael Jackson, and if you think it will surrender to the famous guitar solo, you better listen to the whole thing!
https://youtu.be/6B522GbH3D8

[deraudrl]

Then as now, geeks with too much time on their hands.

[deraudrl]

The very definition of "old school": http://www.righto.com/2019/09/risky-lin ... e-ibm.html

The IBM 1401 was the first computer I ever programmed, over 50 years ago (high school). They could also make music with it by "transmitting" direct to radio, but I never saw that: "Programmers also used the 1401 to generate music on an AM radio via RF interference. Running the right instruction sequence generated a particular tone. We hope to try this in the future." (from the link above)

[trogluddite]

Thank you both, those had me grinning from ear to ear (and disappearing down the Google rabbit hole for a while - I'll wear out Wikipedia's "vintage computer gear" pages one of these days!)