Here I’m collecting some files that were presumed lost to time to preserve the sadly now defunct Uncommon Projects’ Pixelmusic 3000, an open source, GPL licensed clone of the Atari Video Music based on a Parallax Propellor microcontroller.
This project was featured on Make Magazine’s website back in 2012, but all of the links are now dead thanks to Uncommon Projects’ demise and that makes me sad. 😔
Here’s Make Magazine’s official PDF of the project, as generated back in 2012.
Pixelmusic 3000 Videos
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53qIO64FHdg
I built one of these and - as you can see - it worked great!
Here’s an older video (not mine) of the device in action:
Bill Of Materials (BOM)
- 22-gauge solid hookup wire (1) Various colors
- Ribbon cable (1) Any width
- DC power jack to PCB adapter (1) That fits wall-wart plug, Digi-Key #CP-202A-ND
- 6V 300mA DC power supply (1) ‘Wall wart’
- Prop Plug programming connector (1) Parallax #32201
- Slide switch (1)
- Rubber feet (4) (1)
- Wood-grain contact paper (1) from a local hardware store
- Serpac A-21 enclosure, black (1) Jameco #373333
- 10kΩ trimpot variable resistor (1) Aka potentiometer
- Perf board (1) RadioShack #276-150
- 40-pin IC socket (1)
- Microchip MCP3208 analog-to-digital converter (ADC) (1)
- 24LC 256 256K serial EEPRO M memory (1)
- Propeller 40-pin microcontroller (1) Parallax #P8X32A-D40
- Mini-to-RCA A/V cable (1)
- LM2937 3.3V voltage regulator (1)
- 5MHz crystal (1)
- Circuit board headers: 3-pin and 4-pin (1)
- Red LED (1)
- Resistors: 270Ω (2), 560Ω, 1.1kΩ, 4.7kΩ (2), and 10kΩ (1)
- Capacitors: 0.1μF and 22μF (1)
- Stereo mini (3.5mm) cable (1)
Other Bits & Bobs
- You’ll need the PropellorIDE to be able to flash the code.
- You’ll also need a Prop Plug!
(OK, there may be other ways to do this, I have zero experience with the Propellor but this is the recommended method as per the original instructions)
Misc Files
- Schematic
- Parallax .spin file (original MAKE version)
- Parallax .spin file (later Uncommon Projects version with comments, some tweaks etc.)
- For either of the above, you’ll also need Graphics.spin, MCP3208.spin, and TV.spin
- Version converted for the Propellor Demoboard (archived from here)
KiCAD Project / Gerbers
- You can download my KiCAD project here here
- You can also download the Gerber files for PCB fabrication here
Files were recovered using The Wayback Machine from links I found online.
Header image credit: Uncommon Projects / Make Magazine.
If you liked this post please consider following me on Instagram or BlueSky!
