Bhagpuss, in one of his typically epically long missives, happened to mention AI-generated music. Hey, I am an occasional AI-generated music enjoyer. I got to wonder just how far back the whole computer-generated music scene went.

And then I remembered Hollywood Medieval. I dimly remembered it.

It came out back when I was chatting with a few LucasArts games developers. I thought it was by one of them, but when looking for it today, I found out I was wrong, though I wouldn't be shocked to find they knew each other. (Edit: upon reading his Wikipedia entry, it turns out he did work at Lucasfilms for a time, so there is a chance I met him at a party, but I don't remember if I did).

Hollywood Medieval is a demo for the old Atari 800 line of computers that plays vaguely medieval-ish sounding music using the Atari 800's primitive built-in sound synthesizer. According to developer Douglas Crockford,

[The music] probably doesn't sound anything at all like the secular music of the Middle Ages. It does sound quite a lot like the music most of us would expect to hear in a movie about the Middle Ages. (It's important to keep your mythologies straight.)

I remember being blown away by this when I first heard it, nearly half a century ago (wow). I thought it was literally generating music on the fly. Listening to it today, I realized it is just three voice melodies that share a common key and tempo so that they can be seamlessly combined and never sound discordant. But, it's just snipping together bits of melody Crockford composed over the years.

When asked, Google AI search said that the Douglas Crockford who made this demo was unrelated to the Douglas Crockford who developed the JSON format. Well, Google AI search was wrong.

I was able to load this demo on RetroArch, but I couldn't get any sound out of it. Sound being the whole point of this, I did find a short video of it running on YouTube. It sounded better in 1982, honestly. Blown away. At the time.

And, because the author made this all freely distributable, here is his user manual:

Hollywood Medieval — User Manual

By Douglas Crockford (1982)

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Copyright

Program and manual contents © 1982 Atari, Inc.
Music © 1982 Douglas Crockford
Music used by permission. All rights reserved.

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PLEASE COPY THIS PROGRAM

You are invited to make copies of this program and to distribute them free of charge to other Atari owners.

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Hollywood Medieval

Part One

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Overview

HOLLYWOOD MEDIEVAL is a piece of music that you fly through with your computer. This is an interactive musical experience—you control the music by choosing paths through many melodies.

This… “thing???” (it seems more than a program, but isn’t exactly a game) is suitable for all ages.

• Read Part One for instructions on running Hollywood Medieval.

• Read Part Two if you want to know more about how it works.

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Hardware Requirements

• 24K RAM with disk drive

• Atari 810/1050 Disk Drive

• Optional Accessories:
  1–4 Atari Joystick Controllers

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Getting Started

Load the Hollywood Medieval program. It will load into memory and start automatically.

If you wish, plug one or more joysticks into any controller jack.

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Performing Hollywood Medieval

You will first see a title screen and hear the opening fanfare. The title fades into a display of “flying” through a rectangular trench—a visual representation of the music.
Don’t rely too much on the graphics. Use your ears.

Controls — the three yellow console buttons

• OPTION: Start the program over

• SELECT: Stop the music; press again to continue

• START: Take the next turn

Joystick button: Same as START — take the next turn.

What is “taking a turn”?

When the program starts, it repeats the fanfare indefinitely. Pressing START causes the program to “turn” and follow a different musical path.

As you explore, you’ll discover many turning points and how your choices alter the music (always pleasantly).

At first, many melodies may sound similar. Over time, you’ll distinguish the melodies and learn the variations from the repeats.

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A Fun Challenge!

In the game Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail (APX-20132 / now from ANTIC Publishing), the music played when the Grail is delivered to the Chapel is the finale (coda) of Hollywood Medieval.

Try to find it!

You’ll know you’ve passed it because silence follows.
Press START or OPTION to start over.

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Part Two

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About the Music

The style is called Hollywood Medieval, named after that great guy, Mister Hollywood himself, Carl Hollywood.

It probably does not resemble actual secular medieval music. Instead, it sounds like what most people expect to hear in a movie about the Middle Ages.

The melodies were collected over many years and are similar in key, style, and tempo so they can transition smoothly without extra connecting material.

All material is original, except a deliberately plagiarized measure of Bolero, courtesy of Maurice Ravel and Peter Schickele.

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About the Performance

The sounds are generated by POKEY, the Atari I/O and audio chip. POKEY creates square waves using counters and shift registers—limited, but inexpensive.

Several techniques were used to improve sound quality, including envelope generation.

Challenges included:

• voices blending into “blah” without octave separation

• close harmony sounding terrible

• needing to reduce to 3–4 voices

• coupling two voices to improve range and intonation

Even so, it still sounds like square waves. The author looks forward to future machines with high-quality synthesizers.

Hollywood Medieval began as an experiment in integrating music with video-game action.

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About the Display

The display uses ANTIC mode C, a high-resolution two-color mode.

• A display-list interrupt sets the color of the floor at the vanishing point.

• Wall detail is drawn using missiles that grow brighter and wider toward the edges.

• The playfield is very wide to eliminate borders.

• Using a fast fill and double-buffering, the playfield updates 15 times per second.

• Missiles move 60 times per second for smoother motion.

If no turn is taken for ~9 minutes, attract mode begins (color shifting). This prevents picture-tube burn-in. Not all computers have this feature—Atari was ahead of its time!

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Development Tools

Music was arranged with:

• a Casio MT-30

• daughter Jane’s Schoenhut

• Atari’s Music Composer cartridge (described as “a very dull tool indeed”)

Programming was done on two Atari 800s:

• one with an Axlon Ramdisk

• one attached to a 20MB Corvus Disk System via a multiplexer
  (“wonderful to work with”)

Software tools:

• modified MEDIT and AMAC (Atari’s Macro Assembler) running on Corvus

• custom music compiler written in C, using Deep Blue C (APX-20166)

• Basic/A+ for quick utilities

All tools ran on the Corvus without modification.

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Use and Enjoy!

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