Paul Wilkinson (NES Driver)

Paul Wilkinson

Released 1992-12-?? Programmers Paul Wilkinson Language 6502 Assembly

Paul Wilkinson is an unofficial name of the NES sound driver used at Radical Entertainment. It was created by Paul Wilkinson, who also scored all of their NES games.

Paul had originally started with The Terminator, writing the music in assembly. When The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle was being developed, he ended up writing a program to convert MIDI files to his sound driver. He would write his MIDI files in Cakewalk for MS-DOS.

Release History

It is unknown exactly which game was the first to use Paul's driver, but it was either The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, or The Terminator, both of which were released at the end of 1992. The last game to use the driver was Mario's Time Machine released in June 1994, making it one of the last drivers to be used in an official NES game.

Output

The driver outputs to the RP2A03 only, as none of the games that used the driver were released outside of North America. The only exception to this is The Terminator, which is said to have had a European release.

Games

Released	Title	Sample
1992-12-??	The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (NES)
1992-12-??	The Terminator (NES)
1993-07-??	Mario is Missing! (NES)
1993-12-??	Wayne's World (NES)
1994-06-??	Mario's Time Machine (NES)

Technical

Frequency Registers

B-7 = 0E
A#7 = 0F
A-7 = 10
G#7 = 11
G-7 = 12
F#7 = 13
F-7 = 14
E-7 = 15
D#7 = 16
D-7 = 18
C#7 = 19
C-7 = 1B
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 = E3
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 = 1FD
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 = 3F8/3F9

Note A-1 is frequency value 3F8 in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, but 3F9 in the rest of the games.

Addresses

Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle: $1CE32-$1CEC7
Mario is Missing!: $18953-$189E8
Mario's Time Machine: $1BA05-$1BA9A
Terminator: $1DDB0-$1DE45
Wayne's World: $1E50F-$1E5A4