Loopy DIY: A Swedish musician/engineer created a working accordion utilizing two Commodore 64 computer systems and a bunch of floppy disks. Dubbed the Commodordion, it performs mechanically, identical to its common counterpart, however the output is harking back to Eighties space 8-bit arcade music.
The instrument is easy in idea and operation. Two C-64s are related by way of bellows created from dozens of 5.25-inch floppy disks. The bellows management the “airflow” (quantity) of the notes performed. The keys on every pc act as they’d on a typical accordion, with the appropriate one producing the melody and the left outputting chords.
Developing the Commodordion was removed from being as simple as its operation. Inventor and YouTuber Linus Åkesson began by making the bellows. Every fold required three floppies lower in two totally different patterns and held along with tape. The folds had been then interlocked with the earlier one and held tight with extra tape. There are at the very least 16 folds, so 48 or extra 5.25 floppies met their demise for this venture.
Åkesson mentioned, “No good disks had been harmed within the making of this video.”
As beforehand talked about, an accordion’s bellows management the quantity of performed notes. The tougher it’s pressured, the louder the sounds produced. The Commodordion bellows are hermetic apart from a gap within the again that blows on a microphone. This mic feeds into an envelope follower, translating the mic hiss into quantity. That, in flip, feeds right into a digital-to-analog converter that outputs the sounds.
Every C-64 was additionally closely modified, however you would not understand it till you see them from behind (above). Two energy provides are wired on to the motherboards relatively than by way of the adapter port. Different motherboard modifications embrace a hardwired Commodore Tape Drive emulator and the output module. All in all, the machine has three customized circuit boards wired on to the C-64 PCBs.
Lastly is a customized program saved on that emulated tape drive. This software program interprets the keypresses on every pc into accordion notes. As you may see within the video, Åkesson is a talented musician and might play the machine in real-time simply as he would the usual instrument. The music produced would match completely into any Eighties-era online game.
Åkesson included much more particulars on his weblog for these .
