
8BitBoy – A Flash-based Amiga Modplayer - drydot
http://8bitboy.popforge.de/
======
brokenparser
No idea what music is exactly on the site but I, for one, love 8bit music and
would like to take this opportunity to spam some links to various related
websites in case TFA is relevant to your interests.

    
    
      CDs:
      https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/absolute-amiga-compilation/id436035771
      http://dataairlines.bandcamp.com/
      Actual mod, it, s3m etc. files:
      http://modarchive.org/
      http://www.keygenmusic.net/
      Demos:
      http://www.pouet.net/
      Artists:
      http://www.8bitweapon.com/
      http://kubbi.bandcamp.com/
      https://soundcloud.com/goto80
      http://gwem.bandcamp.com/
      https://soundcloud.com/sabrepulse
      http://047.se/
      Commodore64 music:
      http://www.hvsc.c64.org/
      https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.bitheap.sidplayer
    

There's also plenty of material on Spotify and Grooveshark. If you need a
player, Audacious / Banshee / Foobar2k / ModPlug Player / mpd / VLC / Winamp /
XimpleMOD... Many players will work, try your existing player if you're not
using one of the aforementioned players.

~~~
chengsun
Online radio dedicated to demoscene music:
[https://www.scenemusic.net/demovibes/](https://www.scenemusic.net/demovibes/)

~~~
raphman
also: [http://www.slayradio.org/](http://www.slayradio.org/) (C64/Amiga
chiptunes)

~~~
brokenparser
don't forget Kohina: [http://kohina.net/](http://kohina.net/)

------
arrrg
And like nearly all audio players on the web it’s tiny. I don’t know what it
is that causes all these players to be so tiny. They are often the central
thing on their page – the thing people come to the page for – but they are
nearly invisible. Practically all podcasters are especially egregious
offenders.

Some are starting to get it. Soundcloud, terrible in every other way, at least
has this really big player with a big and obvious play button. That’s how it’s
done.

~~~
mherkender
I think it's a throwback to older tiny music players. Think Winamp.

~~~
dimitar
Absolutely! Its a relic of a 90s skeuomorph! And the thing is Winamp didn't
look so tiny when your screen resolution is 800x600, so mp3 players didn't
catch-up (and a):

[http://rustythinkpads.info/photos/380ED.jpg](http://rustythinkpads.info/photos/380ED.jpg)

[http://www.crasseux.com/images/gnome2.png](http://www.crasseux.com/images/gnome2.png)

(winamp clone for unix xmms)

------
nitrogen
It's interesting that the author chose to put the spectrum analyzer _after_
the volume control. Usually media player visualizations are computed before
the output gain is applied, to make them look the same regardless of playback
volume.

Has anybody implemented a module player in JavaScript? I've always wanted to
write one for fun; maybe I'll put a Web Audio version on my never-ending
experimental projects list.

~~~
chengsun
Yep, see gasman's JSModPlayer:
[http://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/jsmodplayer/](http://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/jsmodplayer/)

~~~
nitrogen
That one still seems to depend on Flash for audio output.

------
revelation
If you like this, you might also enjoy
[http://remix.kwed.org/](http://remix.kwed.org/)

------
hedwall
It started blasting music right away, didn't read because annoyed.

~~~
lazyjones
Hint: disable Flash ... For security reasons as well as these annoyances.

~~~
Kiro
What security reasons?

------
t0
Don't forget [http://keygenjukebox.com](http://keygenjukebox.com)!

~~~
PavlovsCat
[http://www.cyrilpereira.com/modplayer/](http://www.cyrilpereira.com/modplayer/)

------
singular
There was a definite _style_ to a lot of e.g. game music on the amiga that
made it feel quite unique both at the time and since, and listening to this
reminds me of that style.

'the number of voices is limited to four. To have something similarly to
chords, the three notes of it are repeated very fast. This makes MODs sound so
freaky.'

This is possibly why this stuff sounds so unique. Interesting how a technical
limitation can result in unintended stylistic consequences.

~~~
fractallyte
Actually, chiptunes (C64) and MODs (Amiga) used quite different playback
technologies.

The C64 synthesized its sound via the MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID (Sound
Interface Device). It was limited to 3 voices, so the only way to emulate
chords on a single voice was to arpeggiate rapidly through a sequence of
notes.

The Amiga used four PCM sample based sound channels (in stereo - two left, two
right). So chords could easily be sampled and played back on one or more
channels.

Chiptunes were limited to the distinctive '8 bit electronic' style - although
it didn't stop groups like Maniacs of Noise pushing the technology to use
primitive samples alongside the traditional sounds; one notable example was
the 'Stormlord' soundtrack.

MODs, being sample-based, could be made to sound like quite respectable audio
recordings. Even so, there were some musicians who tried to emulate the old
C64 sound on the Amiga, hence the profusion of chiptune-sounding MODs.

------
mhitza
RIP headphone users

------
jstsch
Hm! Yes, very cool. But this is not how typical mod-files sounded. These sound
more like chip-tunes (SID C64-style), whereas mod-files used quite a lot of
samples. Think Fairlight stuff, Jean Michel Jarre's Zoolookologie...

My favorite MODs are still the ones from Star Control 2 :)

------
RexRollman
I remember that for my first PC, I bought a Pro AudioSpectrum card, which
included Soundblaster compatibility. One of the things they included was a
Modplayer. I can remember downloading a few mod files from Compuserve.

~~~
pjbrunet
MODs were around (I'm pretty sure) years before Soundblaster. At that point
there was really no way to create them on the PC. Pre-SB you could play them
through the PC speaker, which was a tease because you could hear them, just
not make them--without an Amiga. There was this thing called the STM format
(ScreamTracker) that was an attempt to create MOD-like music on the PC.
ScreamTracker wan't compatible with MOD though. Problem with ScreamTracker, it
kinda worked but just barely--it was unstable. Also the Amiga was lightyears
ahead of the PC so the STM format never really had a chance.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_Tracker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_Tracker)
I think tracking on the PC got to be more popular later in the 90s with the
rise of Drumnbass
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_and_bass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_and_bass)

~~~
RexRollman
The part of not being able to create them on a PC really is striking a chord.
That sounds right.

~~~
pjbrunet
I could be wrong, but I think Modedit 2 was the first PC app to make MODs. But
it wasn't really floating around in the wild, maybe you had to be "elite" or
something to even know about it, LOL. There's a guy in here who mentions
Modedit 2, I didn't see anything in Google but I didn't look very hard
[http://www.inthemix.com.au/forum/archive/index.php/t-68295.h...](http://www.inthemix.com.au/forum/archive/index.php/t-68295.html)

------
duiker101
man, auto play music is instaclose tab.

~~~
brokenparser
man, flash is instapwn OS.

(I wouldn't be surprised anymore if the NSA has a backdoor in it, in addition
to the continuously growing list of known security vulnerabilities.)

~~~
vinkelhake
Seriously, can we have one thread without NSA?

~~~
brokenparser
Can we have a web without Flash (or any other proprietary plugin)?

~~~
dgesang
god, it is really getting old ...

------
TheZenPsycho
For those interested in a javascript/web audio api based mod player with a
much more comprehensive list of formats, Flod may be of some interest to you
[http://www.photonstorm.com/flod](http://www.photonstorm.com/flod)

------
benbristow
Awesome but the music on the website made me jump. Please turn off autoplay.

------
camperman
PAL or NTSC MOD timing? :)

------
kaoD
But report: right clicked to access context menu, but it kept playing a short
buffer instead of progressing through the song. Closing the context menu goes
back to normal.

------
dingdingdang
Why is no-one mentioning that the Amiga (at least basic models up until the
1200) was an 16bit computer? Something esoteric with audio chips??

~~~
eschaton
Actually, 16/32-bit — the 68000's data bus and ALU were 16-bit, but the
instruction set and register set were fully 32-bit.

------
alan_cx
Closed that tab as fast as humanly possible. Jeez, autoplaying blasting music?
Come on.

------
kbar13
03: 64-amiga-song is pretty cool rofl

~~~
Zardoz84
I agree

