Cem Tezcan Handheld Retro PC - Commodore HX-64 [Images and Video] | Forum | FusoElektronique

Chiptune [late 70s]⁣

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Before you get your hopes up, the above is a concept design made by Cem Tezcan of a Handheld Retro PC - Commodore HX-64.⁣ Just a concept, but cool nonetheless!
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Where would video game music be without the Commodore 64 and YMO?⁣
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Chiptune is Synthesized Electronic Music made using Programmable Sound Generator Sound Chips found in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles.⁣
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Think of a sound chip as a little synth within your Game Boy or Commodore 64.
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The Commodore 64 in particular used a sound chip called “SID”, or Sound Interface Design, or to put it even more intricately, MOS Technology 6581. The SID was devised by engineer Robert "Bob" Yannes, who later co-founded the Ensoniq.⁣
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The Game Boy and Commodore 64 use a waveform generator to produce different sound waves. The Game Boy uses two pulse channels (a channel for 4-bit pulse-code modulation (PCM) playback, and a pseudo-random-noise generator). The Commodore 64 uses the aforementioned SID chip and uses three channels (switchable between pulse, saw-tooth, triangle, and noise).⁣
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Since you couldn’t really make Polyphonic Music (more than one note at a time), a lot of early video game music featured arpeggios (notes that compose a chord played in a rising or descending order). My favorite example of a video game soundtrack that features an arpeggio is “Track 1” from Top Gear on Super Nintendo - although being from the 90s, the SNES used a more advanced sound chip, “S-SMP”.⁣
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The first video game to implement a continuous background soundtrack with Chiptune was Tomohiro Nishikado's 1978 release Space Invaders, which had four simple chromatic descending bass notes repeating in a loop.⁣
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Pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra started using computers to produce synthesized music in the late 1970s. Within their 1978 self-titled debut album are samples from arcade games like Space Invaders. Sega's 1982 arcade game Super Locomotive even featured a chiptune cover version of YMO's "Rydeen".⁣

Sources

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Synth History
Artstation


References

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Cem Tezcan, From Pac-Man to Pop Music, Vice, The Conversation, Wiki, Mechafatnick.