"Machine Yearning" non-stop: SIDKick pico plays lft's music disk on Commodore 64

Описание: Machine Yearning is a very impressive 4 KB music disk for a modified C64 with two SID chips created by lft (@lftkryo) aka Linus Åkesson in 2023. It is amazing how seven full-blown chiptune tracks can fit into only four kilobytes. While Machine Yearning is attempting to reduce the bytes of memory to the max it boldly makes the choice to only run properly on a Commodore 64 extended with a second SID chip. Furthermore, both SID chips have to be of different kind: One old SID (6581) has to be paired with one new SID (8580) to get the intended sound result. While this is relatively complicated to achieve with real SID chips - modern SID replacements can come in handy here as they offer to emulate both SID chips in their characteristics and often offer to emulate two SID chips in parallel.

This video attempts to "present" the outstanding music disk paired together with the upcoming SID replacement SIDKick Pico.

SIDKick pico is a brand new SID replacement project by Frenetic that is based on a Raspberry Pi Pico combined with a PCB to interface between Pico and the Commodore 64. reSID 0.16 (in two flavours) is used as the engine of the emulation. Up to two SID's can be emulated at the same time.

The decision to use reSID 0.16 with the Pi Pico indicates that the pre-existing SIDKick project from 2021 based on a Teensy 4.1 is not superseeded by SIDKick pico as the Teensy is able to run reSID 1.0 plus additional features like MIDI. SIDKick pico offers an additional way to get a decent SID replacement a bit cheaper.

As I am one of Frenetic's testers I have received a sample PCB from him for extensive testing. Once Frenetic is happy with the state of the SIDKick pico firmware he will most likely release the project on Github as he has done with his past projects. Normally, the testing phase will take a while until the last bugs are located and fixed. Having said that, the firmware is already very capable as you can hopefully hear in this video.

For now, you can find a project presentation/description in this German language forum thread:
https://www.forum64.de/index.php?thre...

But this video is also about the music disk: Read the very interesting background story of Machine Yearning on lft's website: https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/ma...

Find the music disk release here at the Commodore 64 Scene database:
https://csdb.dk/release/?id=231320

Compare lft's own recording of Machine Yearning on his youtube channel.
https://youtube.com/@lftkryo?si=u766N...

If you haven't subscribed to his Youtube channel yet - no, that is impossible - I know that you are already subscribed to it:    • Machine Yearning (4096-byte album)  

Machine Yearning Tracklist

00:00 Division By Zero
04:11 Device Not Present
07:35 Formula Too Complex
11:35 Overflow
14:57 Can't Continue
18:35 Redo From Start
22:13 Return Without Gosub