Vectrex Plus Synth Cart Plus 2600 Equals Musical Insanity
Somewhere round the edges of art, retro gaming, and music, there lies Sebastian Tomczak and his multitude of circuit hacking projects, the latest of which performed an insanely detailed Vectrex/Atari 2600 symphony at an event in Australia the other day.
Our minds boggle at what was going on, but to try to explain it in less than three pages: "The idea behind Black Dog White Dog is to have a 'visual score' written on the Vectrex Logo program...The Vectrex is then filmed via a video camera, which is on its side to compensate for the machine's unique screen dimensions."
But wait, there's more: "Connected to the TV was a set of twenty-four light dependent resistors (whose resistance lowers the more light is presented to them), each replacing certain buttons in one of four 'recreated' Atari 2600 CX50 control pads. These four matrix sets where plugged into two Atari 2600's each running a copy of Paul Slocum's Synthcart."
So basically, the Vectrex's visual output was controlling Atari 2600 music through light sensitivity, and: "Both Ataris had had a direct audio modification performed on them. The audio from the left Atari was played directly through a Marshall guitar amp. The right Atari was through a Behringer bass amp." Wow. Check out Little Scale and the Milkcrate homepage for more on the many and varied circuitbending projects on display here. [via Xir!]








