It's my first post here, so hi to all. Some of you may already know about this project, but nevertheless a little promotion can't hurt xD

Without further ado, may I present to you: Houston Tracker, a multi-channel chip music editor for Z80-based TI graphic calculators.
It uses 1-bit sound synthesis, inspired by how things are done on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K home computer.
The aim of this project is to turn your calc into a musical instrument. The classic version will take over almost the entire RAM, so it's not recommended to install this if you still need to use your calc in school/university. For these purposes, you can use the "light" version which has a lower maximum song length.
Please note that Houston Tracker is still in early beta stage, so it may cause trouble on your calc. If you find any bugs, please report them here.




Download (contains 82/83/83+/84+ binaries and offline manual)
Website w/ online manual
Sound demo 1 (Engine 1)
Sound demo 2 (Engine 2+3)



Features

- Multiple sound routines with 2-4 channels + click drums + fx
- PFM (classical ZX Spectrum beeper sound) or square wave synthesis
- Multispeed tunes
- Stereo sound
- Simple "live" features
- A backup buffer for saving 1 additional tune (the current wip is preserved in memory anyway)
- Multiple save slots


Also available now: a "light" version with less features that doesn't fill up the entire RAM

Supported calcs/shells: TI82/CrASH, TI83/82STATS/Ion 1.6U, TI83+/DoorsCS/MirageOS or any newer shell that supports IonFastCopy
Houston Tracker may also work on TI76.fr and TI73 Explorer, though this hasn't been tested yet.


Planned features:

- Internal compression
- TI85/86/73 ports




FAQ

Why on earth does HT use hex instead of note names?

I thought about this for a long time, and in the end decided against note names for a number of reasons:

- Automatic note-to-hex translation would vastly increase the size of the program for various reasons. Most critically, it isn't possible to translate values via a linear or logarithmic function, and each of the sound engines uses different values.

- There's basically no room for it in the interface.

- Detuning is an omnipresent problem with 1-bit music. So frequently you'll find yourself wanting to manually detune the notes. Also, detuning is a commonly used technique for creating more interesting timbres with 1-bit sound. With hex, this ís easily possible. Using note names on the other hand would require an additional data column for detuning, cluttering the interface even more.

- When using detune, Hex-to-note translation becomes a non-deterministic operation, since values for higher octaves can be just 1 byte apart.

- Last but not least, the 12-tone western scale is a backward thing, really. You don't need it to make good electronic music, in fact it actually limits your creativity.


Where's the source code?

The source code will be released when multiload/save and internal compression are done. Also, atm there's quite a bit of optimizing left to do.


Will there be a 84+ port?

Yep, it's done.

Right, I have therefore promoted your program further to the leading French-speaking site, TI-Planet: https://www.tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11626

It's not the first sound-making program for the TI-Z80 (or TI-68k, for that matter) series - in fact, there's a well-known one here on Cemetech - but each program is different. Besides, it's always cool to see someone doing non-standard things with calculators

The 96x64 screen resolution is a severe limitation for programs like this one, it's hard to cram all of the relevant information into such a tiny space... The larger screens of the 85 and 86, or of course the TI-68k series' 160x100 or 240x128 screens, would give you a breather - but all of those models are much less widespread nowadays (and always have been, as far as TI-68k calculators are concerned).

Thanks for spreading the word, Lionel, I really appreciate it.

Also thanks for pointing me towards mobileTunes, had seen it before but totally forgot about it, since I'm not really at home in the 8x+ world. it seems like a great tool with a great sound routine that I'd like to check out at some point - maybe it's actually HT-compatible.

Btw to my great surprise it seems that HT is actually running on 84+. Well, that should illustrate nicely how little I really know about these newer TIs. My one and only true love is and always will be the TI82, since that's the one I grew up with

The 83+ and 84+ are extremely close, indeed.

This program works without a problem on the TI84+. I have tested.

@utz Yeah the thing is that the TI-84 Plus uses a 2.5x faster processor than the TI-82 and TI-83 Plus, so inevitably your songs will play this much faster, not twice slower as you initially thought. Of course there is the issue of lower RAM, though, especially on the TI-84 Plus Color model (which has 21 KB of RAM), so for those calcs the ability to play music directly from the Flash would be a good feature addition

Et voilà, version 0.3 is ready.

New stuff in this version:
- New load/save system with multiple save slots.
- A new drum sound
- A feature to mute channels seperatly. Affects only single row play mode, but also works for copy/paste.
- "Light" versions which take up half the memory, but at the cost of a reduced maximum song length. So now you can have Houston Tracker running on your calc AND still use it for mundane means such as school work
- Various internal optimizations.

Download