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Harlem PC Speaker

from Shakebit by Inverse Phase

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Track written in: Monotone 0.35 alpha
Chip found in: IBM PC
Other names for chip: 8253 PIT

Channels: 1
1-bit volume, undefined pitch control
Quirks: not "really" a sound chip

The PC speaker is a 1-bit, er, thing, that is actually driven off DC voltage rather than AC. The Programmable Interrupt Timer, or PIT for short, can oscillate the speaker back and forth at certain intervals, and as you can imagine, it's better than NOT having one. Because the PIT is in the IBM PC, you can do things like "sound in the background" which is not possible on the Apple II or ZX Spectrum (see last track). Because you could program specific tones, most PC speaker music of its era would simply arp the single channel so it sounded like multiple tones.

credits

from Shakebit, released April 1, 2013

license

all rights reserved

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about

Inverse Phase Baltimore, Maryland

Chiptune/8-bit music and indie game composer. I also run an electronic entertainment museum called Bloop.

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