A 1981 Computer Spectrum Analyser

The worlds of computers and electronic music go hand in hand, and often there are unexpected oddities to be found, marrying the two. This Audio Spectrum Analyzer for the TRS-80 Color Computer (Radio Shack Cat. No. 26-3156) is a surprisingly responsive and well-featured example, released way back in 1981 by Steve Bjork (possibly no relation to the singer). The Tandy Colour Computer (or CoCo) uses a Motorola 6809 processor which is clearly capable of doing FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) pretty accurately using the TV RF connection. Here's a bit more information from the video:

Reddit user CheapScotch confirmed that this is 100% software based. People had produced both a tape and disk version of this software which you can find online. He tried one of these on his Coco 2 and it worked perfectly. (It is just a 4K ROM.) This shows that there is absolutely nothing in the cartridge other than a ROM and the Coco is able to do all of this using built in 1980 technology.

The video is made by Adrian's Digital Basement https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE5dIscvDxrb7CD5uiJJOiw

About the author [midierror]: midierror makes nifty Max For Live devices, innovative music hardware, award winning sample packs and hosts a podcast speaking to people in the music world.

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