Martin Galway's music source files from 1980's Commodore 64 games

You can listen to the Wizball tunes here:

https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/G/Galway_Marti...

(use the little up/down arrows to switch between subtunes)

In the file https://github.com/MartinGalway/C64_music/blob/main/ocean_as...

> DSP

> not entirely sure what this one is... another variation of "Define Space" ? check back for the correct definition of this

It's probably 'displacement'. This worked together with ORG ('origin'). ORG specifies where in memory the code will run. DSP then moves the code the specified amount further along in memory, with the understanding that it will be moved back to the ORG address when it needs to run.

> DFC

> not entirely sure what this one is... define characters?

Same as DFM, but generates PETSCII instead of ASCII.

Super cool. I loved Galways's C64 tunes as a kid, especially Wizball & Parallax. I remember trying to write my own player in assembly (yet another unfinished project).

Q: have people attempted to translate this into Tidal Cycles, or Strudel JS? (Pattern playing of music by notation)

Edit: AI says doing the translation would be hard, though doable. https://claude.ai/share/65c16d60-5d27-496b-96a7-40959e95ac62

Edit 2: here is an AI translation of some of the notes, what Claude claims as the main melody:

https://strudel.cc/#Ci8vIFdpemJhbGwgIklucHV0IE5hbWUiIC0gbWFp... .. uh ...

Edit 3: the original theme is amazing and worth listening to https://youtu.be/sFYzjU-C3mA

Props to Martin Galway to make this available to the public. I wish this were more common. I.e. writers could insist on a contractual shorter copyright period when negotiating with publishers.

Then again, I don't know how much authors earn on books after 10, 20, 30 years. It probably varies, the JRR Tolkien estate and K.K Rowling probably see still very significant income streams. It could still be a good strategy for lesser known authors.

Green Beret and Rambo: First Blood Part 2 tunes are still amazing, Martin is a wizard.

Not old enough to have experienced that era of computing but I do know that Cosmic Bakery slaps.

I've been listening this on and off for more than a decade:

https://slayradio.org

Memories! I loved Galway and Hubbard (and tigers and bears oh my etc). They managed to do some really interesting things under the constraints. Still love listening to some of it, today.

Presumably the music wasn’t developed in form of these source files, given that they exceed the size of C64 RAM.

This is really cool. Need to go grab my Reference Guide to make more sense of it, as it's been a while.

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