SIDin (e-zine)
stefano-tognon's (ice00) free PDF magazine about "the SID chip from the inside": fifteen issues between September 2002 and 2015-10-31, each with a news section on players, editors and hardware, an interview with a SID composer or tool author, and technical articles — reverse-engineered music routines with commented listings, tracker walkthroughs, ripping tutorials and the code of the Tiny SID compo entries (sources: s-sidin02-matt-gray-driller, s-sidin-news-digest). Every issue was "version 1.00", written in OpenOffice, and every editorial states that the rights of the analysed code stay with the composers (source: s-sidin-news-digest).
Issues#
| # | date | pages | interview | technical articles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2002-09 | 53 | Luca Carrafiello (s-sidin01-carrafiello-interview) | Iseq (s-sidin01-iseq); ripping and analysing Dig Dug (s-sidin01-dig-dug-rip) |
| 2 | 2002-11-21 | 52 | Lasse Öörni / Cadaver (s-sidin02-cadaver-interview) | David Whittaker's Lazy Jones routine (s-sidin02-whittaker-lazy-jones); Matt Gray's Driller routine (s-sidin02-matt-gray-driller) |
| 3 | 2003-02-07 | 45 | Stephan Schmid (s-sidin03-schmid-interview) | music-engine pattern searching, part 1 (s-sidin03-pattern-searching-1); ripping a BASIC tune (s-sidin03-ripping-basic-tune) |
| 4 | 2003-06-21 | 99 | Chris Abbott (s-sidin04-abbott-interview) | ripping BASIC into RSID (s-sidin04-ripping-basic-rsid); Martin Galway's Arkanoid routine (s-sidin04-galway-arkanoid) |
| 5 | 2004-01-11 | 35 | Chris Hülsbeck (s-sidin05-huelsbeck-interview) | pattern searching, part 2 — the Lostack engine database (s-sidin05-pattern-searching-2); HVMEC (s-sidin05-hvmec) |
| 6 | 2004-05-08 | 31 | Jan Harries / Rambones (s-sidin06-harries-interview) | Asterion Sid Tracker (s-sidin06-asterion-sid-tracker); DigiOrganizer (s-sidin06-digiorganizer) |
| 7 | 2005-01-09 (printed "9 January 2004") | 53 | Dustbin (s-sidin07-dustbin-interview) | the Modules engine (s-sidin07-inside-modules); xxlarge (s-sidin07-xxlarge) |
| 8 | 2005-07-30 | 55 | Aleksi Eeben (s-sidin08-eeben-interview) | Tiny Sid compo, 512-byte entries (s-sidin08-tiny-sid-512b); the Catweasel MK4 card (s-sidin08-catweasel-mk4) |
| 9 | 2006-01-14 | 61 | Nata (s-sidin09-nata-interview) | Tiny Sid compo, 256-byte entries (s-sidin09-tiny-sid-256b); Catweasel MK4 follow-up with 6581 measurements (s-sidin09-catweasel-6581) |
| 10 | 2006-07-16 | 43 | Richard Bayliss (s-sidin10-bayliss-interview) | Tiny Sid 2, part 1 (s-sidin10-tiny-sid-2-part-1); GoatTracker 2 (s-sidin10-goattracker-2) |
| 11 | 2007-02-14 | 41 | Laxity (s-sidin11-laxity-interview) | Tiny Sid 2, part 2 (s-sidin11-tiny-sid-2-part-2); SID Factory vs Ninjatracker (s-sidin11-sid-factory-vs-ninjatracker) |
| 12 | 2008-05-24 | 33 | Hermit (s-sidin12-hermit-interview) | Tiny Sid 2, part 3 (s-sidin12-tiny-sid-2-part-3); ripping Trivia Arcade (s-sidin12-ripping-trivia-arcade) |
| 13 | 2010-06-28 | 51 | TSM & Freedom (s-sidin13-tsm-freedom-interview) | JITT64 tracker (s-sidin13-jitt64-tracker) and its player (s-sidin13-inside-jitt64) |
| 14 | 2015-01-25 | 75 | Scarzix (s-sidin14-scarzix-interview) | Matt Gray's Dominator player (s-sidin14-dominator-player); Hunter's Moon (s-sidin14-hunters-moon) |
| 15 | 2015-10-31 | 53 | Matt Gray (s-sidin15-matt-gray-interview) | Matt Gray's Serpent demo player and its samples (s-sidin15-serpent-demo-player); JSIDPlay2 review (skipped) |
The news sections of all issues are digested in s-sidin-news-digest; the triage of every article is in inbox/sidin-toc.md.
Facts#
- Shape of an issue: an editorial, a news section ("evergreen" by design — tools, collections, hardware, compos), one interview, then the technical articles; every issue is "version 1.00", and #4 mentions a
revision.txtof errata and "version 1.1 of each issue" (source: s-sidin-news-digest). - Written in OpenOffice for "an open archive format … available on most of the platforms":
.sxwand PDF at first,.odtfrom #9, which also began colouring the 6502 listings with KWrite's syntax highlighting (source: s-sidin-news-digest). - Hosting: Tognon's own site digilander.iol.it/ice00/tsid/ (later digilander.libero.it), which also held the SidWine, Tiny Sid and Big Sid compos and hvmec; from #15 the magazine's page is iceteam.altervista.org/sidin.php (the Ice Team site announced in #14). The digilander site is gone; the issues are mirrored at commodore.software (sources: s-sidin-news-digest, s-sidin02-matt-gray-driller).
- Rights: every analysis is reverse-engineered from a rip and the code stays with its authors — #2 "the right of the presented code remain to the two authors" (Whittaker and Gray — "Matt! Where are you?"), #3 "Andrew Colin and Commodore", #4 "the copyright of the presented codes remain to the original authors: contact them for a business use of it" (sources: s-sidin-news-digest, s-sidin02-matt-gray-driller).
- The gaps between issues are explained in the editorials: too much other SID activity (#3, #5), a minigame compo deadline that pushed #6 out early, fifteen days without Internet in December 2006 (#11), XSidplay2, HVMEC and the Java tracker that became jitt64 (#12–#13), and "more than 4 years" between #13 and #14 (source: s-sidin-news-digest).
- What the editorials started: #3 offers to reverse-engineer readers' favourite engines on request; #7 floats "a competition about writing very smal sid" — the tiny-sid-compo; #8 records that martin-galway had read the Arkanoid article "and found it interesting"; #10 prints Frantic's correction of the previous analysis of his 256-byte player; #14 announces "Matt Gray is again in the scene!!" and #15 that PSID files "were extended to allow 3 SID chips" (source: s-sidin-news-digest).
- The Tiny Sid series (#7 announcement, #8–#9 the 2005 entries, #10–#12 the 2006 entries) is the wiki's main material on sub-kilobyte players; the player analyses (Lazy Jones, Driller, Dig Dug, Arkanoid, Modules, JITT64, Dominator, Hunter's Moon, the Serpent Demo) are compared on sid-player-routine; the pattern-searching articles became player-identification (sources: s-sidin07-xxlarge, s-sidin03-pattern-searching-1).
- Issue 4's reverse-engineering of Martin Galway's Arkanoid is public as ACME source in the realdmx collection ("Reverse Engineered by Stefano Tognon (SIDIn Magazine #4)") — see galway-player and arkanoid (source: s-realdmx-galway-arkanoid-player). Issue 2's Lazy Jones routine is the minimal one; Whittaker's later Panther driver (whittaker-player) is a different, full player (source: s-realdmx-fredgray-kimmel-whittaker).
Related#
stefano-tognon · jitt64 · player-identification · tiny-sid-compo · matt-gray-player · galway-player · whittaker-player · sid-player-routine · hvsc · hvmec · sidid
Sources#
s-sidin01-carrafiello-interview · s-sidin01-dig-dug-rip · s-sidin01-iseq · s-sidin02-cadaver-interview · s-sidin02-matt-gray-driller · s-sidin02-whittaker-lazy-jones · s-sidin03-pattern-searching-1 · s-sidin03-ripping-basic-tune · s-sidin03-schmid-interview · s-sidin04-abbott-interview · s-sidin04-galway-arkanoid · s-sidin04-ripping-basic-rsid · s-sidin05-huelsbeck-interview · s-sidin05-hvmec · s-sidin05-pattern-searching-2 · s-sidin06-asterion-sid-tracker · s-sidin06-digiorganizer · s-sidin06-harries-interview · s-sidin07-dustbin-interview · s-sidin07-inside-modules · s-sidin07-xxlarge · s-sidin08-catweasel-mk4 · s-sidin08-eeben-interview · s-sidin08-tiny-sid-512b · s-sidin09-catweasel-6581 · s-sidin09-nata-interview · s-sidin09-tiny-sid-256b · s-sidin10-bayliss-interview · s-sidin10-goattracker-2 · s-sidin10-tiny-sid-2-part-1 · s-sidin11-laxity-interview · s-sidin11-sid-factory-vs-ninjatracker · s-sidin11-tiny-sid-2-part-2 · s-sidin12-hermit-interview · s-sidin12-ripping-trivia-arcade · s-sidin12-tiny-sid-2-part-3 · s-sidin13-inside-jitt64 · s-sidin13-jitt64-tracker · s-sidin13-tsm-freedom-interview · s-sidin14-dominator-player · s-sidin14-hunters-moon · s-sidin14-scarzix-interview · s-sidin15-matt-gray-interview · s-sidin15-serpent-demo-player · s-sidin-news-digest · s-realdmx-galway-arkanoid-player · s-realdmx-fredgray-kimmel-whittaker