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SwinSID - 16-bit stereo SID replacement built with AVR MCU SwinSID
is a hardware replacement for legendary SID sound chip placed in every
Commodore C64 computer. This extension is designed as a module
installed directly
into SID socket. It emulates sound of SID chip, but it is
lot more powerful and let you experience the new
dimension of C64 music.
Hardware desing of SID and SwinSID module is different in almost any way. My module is equipped with general purpose microprocessor with internal RAM and ROM memory. Programmable device like this has a big advantage - there is a possibility to upgrade firmware to add new features or fixes without any hardware modification.
SwinSID is based on wave table synth so,
any waveform can be stored in memory and playback instead of generating
only simple waves like SID does. Thanks this it can produce more complex
signal of different instruments. The new mixing modes can also be used
for even more rich sound. The polyphony of sound module was increased
from only three to six channels with stereo panning and maintain
compability with current SID2SID devices in fact it emulates two independent SID chips.
SwinSID can be used with any of C64 model plugged into SID socket and can replace both old and new
revision of SID. To run it, all you need is to open your computer,
remove SID chip and put this module in its socket. Power voltage is taken from c64, so
special power supply is also unnecessary.
SwinSID just emulates almost full register set of standardf SID, and almost all applications,
which uses SID, will work with SwinSID too.
You must notice that SwinSID doesn't sounds
like real SID due to some design limitation it introduces low aliasing
distortions, but in other way it has improvements from SID in different
areas like better ADSR envelope handling and digital, self-oscilating
filter. The
overall quality of music would be much better when music take advantage
of all features of this module and use multiple different waveforms,
not available in SID.
SwinSID has a very simple design thanks to high speed processor
taking care of everything. The heart of SwinSID is Atmel AVR
microcontroller with RISC core running at 24MHz and runs overclocked from default 16MHz, This chip
is about 30 times faster than C64's main processor 6510, that gives enough power for
real-time audio generating, mixing and processing. Digital sound
goes from AVR to high quality 16 bit stereo DAC. At the
end of processing
we have stereo analog output for external amplifier.
2009.11.11 2009.8.20 2009.4.15 |