Tone Toy 2008

A sound toy by Duane Alan Hahn (Random Terrain)

This is a program for the Atari 2600 made with batari Basic that lets you play with sounds and sound effects using loops. It can simply be used as a toy or you can use it to think up possible new sound effects for your games.

The old version of Tone Toy wasn't that great because batari Basic had a two sprite limit. Thanks to the multisprite kernel, batari Basic now allows up to six sprites on the screen at the same time. That means the volume, tone, and frequency for both sound channels can finally be displayed.

The color and order are the same for Channel 0 and Channel 1. Volume is first (blue), Tone is second (green), and Frequency is last (yellow).

Move the joystick up or down to select the volume, tone, or frequency that you would like to adjust (you'll see an indicator to the left of your selection).

When using volume or frequency, move the joystick left or right for a fast looping sound effect or hold down the fire button while moving the joystick left or right if you want to slow down the selected volume or frequency. If you don't hold down the fire button, the numbers will zoom by really fast. That is not a mistake. It's done on purpose so you can play with various sound effects. You can move the joystick left or right for a certain type of looping sound effect or you can jerk the joystick back and forth between a specific range of numbers and come up with sound effects you may never have heard in other Atari 2600 games before. And if you want to select a specific number, you can hold down the fire button while moving the joystick left or right.

Now here's where it can get really crazy. When using volume or frequency, move the joystick left or right and double-click the fire button for continuous loop. The number will jump to the appropriate side to let you know which direction it's looping. Double-click without moving the joystick to stop the continuous loop.

Have fun. You never know what cool sound effect you might discover.

Below is a demo video that I uploaded to YouTube in case you want to see the program in action. If you get bored, be sure to jump to 2:06 before you quit watching. That's where the double-click loops start.

You can download the latest .bin file and .bas file for this program at AtariAge.