Randy Linden (NES Driver)
| Randy Linden | ||||||
| ||||||
Randy Linden is an unofficial name of the sound driver used in all NES games developed by Bethesda Softworks. It was programmed by Bethesda CEO Randy Linden, possibly with the assistance of Paul Coletta.
To create music for Bethesda's NES games, the composer would write SMUS files in Sonix for the Commodore Amiga. The files were then ran through a utility that converted the music data to 6502 assembly instructions for Linden's sound driver.
Release History
The driver was only used in 3 games. The first game to use the sound driver was Wayne Gretzky Hockey. The last game to use the driver was Home Alone. All 3 games were exclusive to North America.
Output
The driver outputs to the 2A03. For music, it uses both square wave, the triangle, and noise channels.
In Wayne Gretzky Hockey, the game uses the noise and DPCM channels for sound effects, the DPCM being used for digitized voice samples. In Home Alone, all of the sound effects take advantage of the 2A03's DPCM channel. In Where's Waldo, there are no sound effects.
Games
| Released | Title | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| 1991-01-?? | Wayne Gretzky Hockey (NES) | |
| 1991-09-?? | Where's Waldo? (NES) | |
| 1991-10-?? | Home Alone (NES) | |
