I've been working on a hardware VGM (Video Game Music) player that uses a SN76489 PSG (Programmable Sound Generator) chip and a YM2612 FM (Frequency Modulation) chip. VGM is an audio logging format for Sega's Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis and SG-1000 Mark III. It accurately reproduces the music from these game consoles because it contains the actual register data sent to the audio chips. The purpose of this project was to have a portable walkman like device so I listen to real (non-emulated) video game music on the subway. I am currently working on including a MIDI interface, an OLED to display the song and track information and improve the VGM decoder to handle DAC samples.
Here's a video of the circuit playing "Sega Genesis - Sonic 2 Emerald Hill Zone" & "Sega Master System Zan Gear Tears of Mortification"
Photo of circuit:
Schematic:
Pictures of the YM2612 chip desoldering processes (from a Model 1 Sega Genesis)
Project blog:
Summary of how it works:
The arduino decodes the VGM File data from a 256K EEPROM according to this documentation:
http://www.smspower.org/music/vgmspec150.txt
then sends the register data to either the Genesis YM2612 chip or PSG Chip via shift registers according to this documentation:
http://www.smspower.org/maxim/docs/ym2612/
http://www.smspower.org/maxim/docs/SN76489.txt
You can find a full archive of VGM music on these sites:
http://www.project2612.org/list.php
Luis