this is what I get for not sleeping in despite being sleepy
1.2 KiB
Sharp SM8512
The SM8512 is the CPU and sound chip of the Game.com, a handheld console released in 1997 as a competitor to the infamous Nintendo Virtual Boy.
Ultimately, most of the games for the Game.com ended up being failiures in the eyes of reviewers, thus giving the Game.com a pretty bad reputation. This was one of the reasons that the Game.com only ended up selling at least 300,000 units. For these reasons and more, the Game.com ended up being discontinued in 2000.
However, for its time, it was a pretty competitively priced system. The Gameboy Color was to be released in a year for $79.95, while the Game.com was released for $69.99, and its later model, the Pocket Pro, was released in mid-1999 for $29.99 due to the Game.com's apparent significant decrease in value.
The sound-related features and quirks of the SM8521 are as follows: 2 4-bit wavetable channels, a noise channel, 5-bit volume, and a low bit-depth output which means it distorts a lot. It also phase resets when you switch waves.
effect commands
10xx
Set waveformxx
is a value between 0 and 255, that sets the waveform of the channel you place it on.
11xx
Toggle noise mode- Seems to do nothing right now.