Bad Apple on a Karaoke Machine

Hackaday reports that developer Adam Gashlin got Bad Apple running on CD+Graphics, the karaoke-disc format from the nineteen nineties. CD+Graphics was built to scroll lyrics and display static graphics on a forty-eight by sixteen grid—not video. The bandwidth constraint: only two point five seconds per full-screen update. Adam's solution: drop the resolution, update only the changed blocks between frames, and use CD+Graphics's palette-swapping feature to pack four animation frames into one. The result runs video, audio, and scrolling lyrics at sixteen point three frames per second—and his detailed breakdown of how he achieved it is just as impressive as the demo itself.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton