You’ve got to love that 8-bit sound. Blips and bloops and beeps magically merge together to create choppy, nostalgic melodies that remind us how far we’ve come since the first personal computers. But how did those big beige boxes actually make music?


True to his nickname, the 8-Bit Guy and his guest, the Obsolete Guy, know a lot about how computers created sounds three decades ago. In an information-filled new video on YouTube, they explain the early eras of computer music, including internal speakers, FM synthesis, and PCM samples. It’s worth a watch, if only to learn why the Commodore 64 had better music than the original NES.

[Motherboard]

GIF by Andrew Liszewski