Atari Punk Console schematics
The so called “Atari Punk Console” device is a great start for builders interested in working with components and circuitry to produce Bleepy-Bloopy-Gitchy goodness. Using a 556 dual timer IC and a handful of other components one can be built quickly. The basis for this noise maker was a schematic originally published by Forest Mims III
, which now can be found around the web and posted above for easy reference. The APC can be built into any case of your desire, and in the case of The SquareWave Parade even a vintage Atari joystick. The circuit is not only easy to build, but it is also easy to modify. The 556 IC is very resilient and cheap so don’t be afraid connect various pins to each other in order to discover new sounds. Touch contacts can be added in conjunction or as a substitute for the potentiometers and different values of capacitors can be swapped in to change the tone color dramatically and provide greater expression. Lots of links are available on this great little circuit:
Worth Ekik
Kaustic Machines
MatrixSynth: Entry
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Hardware, Schematics, Websites.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
[...] atari punk console(uses 556/555 timers) [...]
I’m curious about the -4dB output as I’d like to make this mod on other circuits sometimes. What’s the math to figure out the voltage divider I need there to make it -4dB? Thanks!
Voltage divider is basically what a potentiometer is. So if you connect the output of the APC to the center leg and the outer legs to Ground and Positive respectively you should have good volume control.
Then if you measure resistance values between the center leg and outer legs you can replace the potentiometer with two fixed value resistors to achieve the volume.
Hope this makes sense