PSID20 v0.3

Description:

PSID20 v0.3 is a program that converts SID-tunes, Compute SID-player tunes (MUS) and Compute Stereo SID-player tunes (MUS+STR) to a VIC20 program which plays the tune on a real (or emulated) VIC20.

Windows download:

PSID20.zip

Source-code download:

PSID20.tgz

SID Tune technical specs:

Because the VIC20 has no SID-chip a SID-cartridge is needed, this SID-cartridge is located at $9800-$981C, the converter translates machine language instructions that put data in the range of $D400-$D41C to machine language instructions that will do the same thing at $9800-$981C, this translation is not smart (yet) so at that point some tunes could get corrupted. The valid ranges for a tune to be played on a VIC20 depend very much on the present memory blocks, and there are too many combination to describe here in detail, the converter and resulting player will let you know which memory blocks are needed. The player uses a rastertimer to play the tune.

SID Tune Limitations:

A tune will definatly not work if the tune does 1 of the following things:

- writing to address-range $9000-$9FFF (the VIC20 I/O area resides here, changing some of these registers might kill the player)

- writing to address-range $0400-$07FF (this area is possibly used for the player if memory block 0 is present)

- writing to unavailable memory blocks, this could lead to loss of data and unexpected situations.

- jumping to C64 specific rom/kernal routines (since the VIC20 doesn't have the same rom/kernal, jumping to such a routine would cause unknown conditions, and probably wind up jamming the CPU)

MUS technical specs:

.MUS files are Compute SID-player tunes, PSID20 now has support for these kind of tunes. The tune itself starts at $2300. A player at $1600-$22FF is used to play the tune. Therefor the maximum convertable size of a MUS-file for a VIC20 is 23808 bytes.

MUS+STR technical specs:

.MUS+.STR files are Compute Stereo SID-player tunes, PSID20 now has support for these kind of tunes. The tune itself starts at $3000. A player at $1600-$2FFF is used to play the tune. Therefor the maximum convertable size of a MUS+STR-file is 20480 bytes.