ZX Spectrum System Tour: Sound
This technical deep dive explores the sound capabilities of the ZX Spectrum, specifically focusing on the 1-bit beeper and the BASIC BEEP command. The author explains how to manipulate memory locations to generate precise tones and scales on the vintage hardware.
Why it matters
It provides historical and technical insight into early computing architecture, appealing to retro-computing enthusiasts and software historians.
Now that the shooting gallery is done and dusted, it’s time to turn to a piece of our initial tour of the ZX Spectrum that has been left untouched: sound. There isn’t a whole lot new here compared to what has come before on other platforms, but that in turn means that the core principles of our solutions to it arrive pre-baked; we’ll just have to add the Spectrum-specific frosting.
The mainline Spectrum systems offer two sound options:
This is part of our general survey, rather like our text mode and bitmap mode surveys, so our goals will be modest; we’ll end this article with three programs that play us a C-major scale.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in