silly project

[chocorisu]

I wrote a little project this evening: HERE (warning, obnoxious loud Flash app).

It is a fairly authentic reproduction of the ZX spectrum loading sound, based on a disassembly of the ZX Spectrum ROM and the Wikipedia article. It encodes 0s and 1s (in this case, random data) using pulse width modulation, which for this application is equivalent to

Comments

[jon_helfrich]

I know next to nothing about the ZX spectrum but it's amusing nonetheless.

Novelty apps are quite lucrative. They don't even need to be as useful as your idea. Though that might help spark the popularity.

So I take it you're learning your way around flash and actionscript?

[chocorisu]

I'm kind of horrified how many people never experienced tape loading. Although I did get into computers when I was very young, so maybe I don't have to feel so old... :)

The sharing-as-audio idea is pretty daft and I doubt I'll take this much further than it is already--it's just a "I wonder how this works" kind of project, rather than anything serious. If I can actually transmit some data between two devices I'll be quite content.

I learnt Flash ages ago. Actionscript is essentially the same language as Javascript so it's very familiar.

[jon_helfrich]

Well by the time I got exposed to computers, they had already moved on to diskettes and cartridges. Also, I think the only computers we had stateside that used tape was the C64 and I haven't seen one ever.

Yeah, we kinda went over the idea of sending data as a square wave in digital circuits. Same principle anyways, just 0-5 volts instead of a tone change.

Hmmm, I seemed to pick up javascript somewhat so maybe I have a chance at actionscript. I was aiming for python for a while but then people told me that's too much for me so now I'm looking at something called gamemaker. Maybe over the winter break here I can actually sit down and learn it and maybe create some basic games. :P

[chocorisu]

I dunno who told you that Python is too much. It's actually a much better learning language than Javascript/Actionscript and has lots of practical applications. If you really want to get programming, there's no better way than dabbling in a bunch of different languages.

I haven't used Game Maker but I know a lot of indies swear by it as a prototyping tool for 2D stuff. You can certainly get a long way with minimal programming, which is great if you're more interested in game design than game development. Spelunky was made in Game Maker, for example.