CRX 2017 was awesome and everybody had a great time! At the 5C's (Clark County Commodore Computer Club) area was the Sajtron booth showcasing multiple Commodore 64 computers all setup in a MIDI rig that had all the SID chips in action!
This was the setup before the event started. All 4 Commodore 64's were wired up to what I call the
MOS SID Mixer as seen on the far left. Next to the mixer is a video switcher hooked up to the iconic Samsung GX CRT with built in subwoofer and cabinet speaker doors (this thing is loud!) and outputs a good composite picture. There is a Moog Song Producer in there and the 1541 disk drive.
To the far right, we have a sound processor, oscilloscope for SID visuals, and a custom quad power supply designed by Sajtron and built by Ray Carlsen. It powers up all 4 C64's with power savers so they don't damage the computers.
Here we have a 5C's member Yul sporting his Commodore SX-64 and he's ready to combat the SID sound rig. As the event started Sajtron pulled out more equipment. Yul is seen here jamming on the prototype FloppyDrums 87'.
The FloppyDrums 87' is made out of floppy disks and an Atari joystick! The drumkit was made exclusively to be premiered at the CRX show. The software was coded in 1987 by Xenon and Sajtron made the drumkit using re-purposed items that did not work: 5 disks with some old Amiga viruses on it that always gave read-write errors, a messed up Atari joystick, and some faulty audio and CAT-5 cables.
Four floppy disks made up the drum pads and the fifth disk...well it was ripped out of its plastic case and fixed on top of the Atari joystick as the cymbal! Here you can see Yul hitting it right on target.
A closer look at FloppyDrums 87' reveals some 90 min.cassette tapes holding it up alongside a pair of No. 2 pencils as the drumsticks. The wiring connects to the C64 joysticks port. Each port has 5 sampled 4-bit drum sounds. So to access each port I have a joystick switcher to switch back and forth to swap sound banks. When the metal pencil tips touch the metal on the floppy discs, it triggers the C64 samples! Instant FloppyDrums!!
Here is on info on the Commodore Quad Power Supply
Custom designed by Sajtron and built by Ray Carlsen
Take a look inside Ray Carlsen's beautiful work. The unit runs on both 120 & 240 Volts so it can be toured, allowing the four Commodore 64's to operate properly in any country. There are Savers on each power connector so all of the C64's all properly protected from any power jolts and also provide enough power to attach multiple cartridges, RAM expansions, and any other external devices. There are 3 hookup combinations you can do with this Quad Power Supply:
4 = C64's
2 = C128's
1 = C128 & 2 C64's
