Difference between revisions of "Nick Eastridge (NES Driver)"

Revision as of 00:04, 23 March 2017

Nick Eastridge (NES Driver) is an unofficial name of the sound driver programmed by Nick Eastridge. Most games that used the driver were either published or developed by Mindscape, though it is believed that Nick Eastridge made some of the games through his company Eastridge Technology. To make music for the driver, composer would write MIDI files which were probably sent to Eastridge to convert to his driver.

Release History

The driver came in a few forms. The first game to use the driver was Paperboy, also the first NES game to be developed in America. The first version of the driver is tuned to about 450Hz, but it was later revised to about 440Hz. Also, as time went on, it contained more features such as note velocity and hold/release parameters. The last game to use Eastridge's driver, WWF: King of the Ring, had some kind of glitch where when the last note in a song was played, it played for only one frame and would immediately return to the beginning of the song.

Games

Released	Title	Version	Sample
1988-12-??	Paperboy (NES)	1
1990-06-??	The Last Starfighter (NES)	1
1990-07-??	Mad Max (NES)	1
1990-09-??	Gauntlet II (NES)	2
1990-09-??	M.U.L.E. (NES)	2
1990-10-??	Orb•3D (NES)	3
1990-12-??	Dirty Harry (NES)	1
1991-02-??	Conan (NES)	2
1991-09-??	Captain Planet and the Planeteers (NES)	3
1992-04-??	Paperboy 2 (NES)	2 (Revised)
1993-09-??	Battleship (NES)	3
1993-11-??	WWF King of the Ring (NES)	2 (Revised)

Technical

Frequency Registers

Version 1

Note: The first version of the driver seems to assign more than one number to certain notes. It hasn't been determined yet which hex values belong to what note.

4A
4E
50
52
53
57
59
5D
62
63
68
6F
74
77
7A
7D
82
84
8B
95
9D
9F
A5
A7
AE
B2
BA
C4
C6
D1
DF
E8
ED
F5
FA
105
108
116
129
139
13F
14A
14E
15C
165
173
188
18D
1A3
1BF
1CF
1DB
1E7
1F4
209
20D
22D
250
273
27D
294
29A
2B9
2C6
2E2
311
319
346
378
399
3B0
3D5
3E2
40C
41A
459

Version 2

B-6 = 1C
A#6 = 1E
A-6 = 20
G#6 = 22
G-6 = 24
F#6 = 26
F-6 = 28
E-6 = 2A
D#6 = 2D
D-6 = 30
C#6 = 32
C-6 = 35
B-5 = 39
A#5 = 3C
A-5 = 40
G#5 = 43
G-5 = 47
F#5 = 4C
F-5 = 50
E-5 = 55
D#5 = 5A
D-5 = 5F
C#5 = 65
C-5 = 6B
B-4 = 71
A#4 = 78
A-4 = 7F
G#4 = 87
G-4 = 8F
F#4 = 97
F-4 = A0
E-4 = AA
D#4 = B4
D-4 = BE
C#4 = CA
C-4 = D6
B-3 = E2
A#3 = F0
A-3 = FE
G#3 = 10D
G-3 = 11D
F#3 = 12E
F-3 = 140
E-3 = 153
D#3 = 168
D-3 = 17D
C#3 = 194
C-3 = 1AC
B-2 = 1C5
A#2 = 1E0
A-2 = 1FC
G#2 = 21B
G-2 = 23B
F#2 = 25D
F-2 = 281
E-2 = 2A7
D#2 = 2CF
D-2 = 2FA
C#2 = 327
C-2 = 357
B-1 = 38A
A#1 = 3C0
A-1 = 3F9
G#1 = 435
G-1 = 475
F#1 = 4B9
F-1 = 501
E-1 = 54D
D#1 = 59E
D-1 = 5F4
C#1 = 64E
C-1 = 6AE

Version 3

B-5 = 38
A#5 = 3C
A-5 = 3F
G#5 = 43
G-5 = 47
F#5 = 4B
F-5 = 50
E-5 = 54
D#5 = 5A
D-5 = 5F
C#5 = 65
C-5 = 6A
B-4 = 71
A#4 = 78
A-4 = 7F
G#4 = 87
G-4 = 8E
F#4 = 97
F-4 = A0
E-4 = A9
D#4 = B4
D-4 = BE
C#4 = CA
C-4 = D5
B-3 = E2
A#3 = F0
A-3 = FE
G#3 = 10E
G-3 = 11D
F#3 = 12E
F-3 = 141
E-3 = 153
D#3 = 168
D-3 = 17C
C#3 = 194
C-3 = 1AB
B-2 = 1C4
A#2 = 1E0
A-2 = 1FC
G#2 = 21C
G-2 = 23A
F#2 = 25C
F-2 = 282
E-2 = 2A6
D#2 = 2D0
D-2 = 2F8
C#2 = 328
C-2 = 356
B-1 = 388
A#1 = 3C0
A-1 = 3F8
G#1 = 438
G-1 = 474
F#1 = 4B8
F-1 = 504
E-1 = 54C
D#1 = 5A0
D-1 = 5F0
C#1 = 650
C-1 = 6AC