1Bit Fever Dreams
LightNews LightNews
banner
1bit.bsky.social
1Bit Fever Dreams
@1bit.bsky.social
2.5K followers 2.4K following 550 posts
Vintage compact black and white Macs enthusiast, sitting on the line between software and hardware! Also very nostalgic of ms-dos gaming golden era 1991-1994.
New adopter of F256K and now F256K2
https://1bitfeverdreams.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
1bit.bsky.social
NEW VIDEO is up, about 2 programs that help me dig for new sounds. Uses MIDI in, drives a dual SID or a YMF262 (opl3) on my F256K2.

The randomizer function is really fun and can land on some sweet sounds!
youtu.be/FSmGOvMXY_s
Thumbnail with white background, a pickaxe icon resting against a sound wave icon. The logos for OPL3 and MOS are sitting above the wave.
November 8, 2025 at 1:05 AM
1bit.bsky.social
I was asked to do a revision with through-hole only components for the PC Gameport Party, I obliged. Exact same functionality, and today I made extra crispy sure it would work by assembling a unit. All tests pass!

1/2
above: a pc gameport party, a breakout PCB in black with joystick and MIDI sockets. The switch and the diode are SMD, the rest are through-hole components. below: same, but under a new revision where everything is a through hole component. the switch that toggles between 1 and 2 player mode is notably chunkier.
November 1, 2025 at 8:00 PM
1bit.bsky.social
* can take in regular keyboard playing (qwerty...] = white notes, etc)
* generate a random OPL2 instrument for you to dig and test out its * values (I use that to find new interesting sounds for other projects)

youtu.be/9_MNY7hs1qg
2/2
thumbnail of a PC with a CRT with text on blue background with instrument data a piano keytar is seen being played in the foreground yellow text overlay says: "MIDI SNIFFER for MS-DOS made in Borland C (lol) 2025"
October 24, 2025 at 4:16 PM
1bit.bsky.social
NEW VIDEO IS OUT: it explains everything about my PC Gameport Party PCB I designed last year.

All the use cases scenarios I had in mind, including the ones that combo with the MIDI selectors I also designed.
Links to gerbers in the description

youtu.be/SGnbr5O1Wa0
a MIDI keyboard is in the back, several vintage Gravis PC joystick and gamepads are on the front. A PC Gameport breakout PCB board is in the center with several cables plugged into it. The words "Let's party" in red, outlined in yellow and against a green splash graphic complete the scene.
October 17, 2025 at 3:45 PM
1bit.bsky.social
Want to support my vintage Mac channel and get a cool shirt based on your favorite game, Dark Castle? There's a 35% off promo right now at threadless:

1bitfeverdreams.thre...
a black t-shirt with the caption "Hang in there" showing a modified scene from the game Dark Castle, where prince Duncan, hanging on for dear life on a rope, is stuck in a level with numerous rats and a flying gargoyle about to snatch him.
October 15, 2025 at 3:53 PM
1bit.bsky.social
I started a repo for the Megaroids source code.

it's not clear how to use megamax C or how the files are ultimately chopped down into, but it doesn't hurt to try. Copy pasting mostly works, but it has a few issues. it's a process of copying chunks by chunks and keeping an eye on it
1/2
about screen for megaroids. Contains a short description of the game and lists an offer to get the source code by mail for a fee.
October 15, 2025 at 12:43 PM
1bit.bsky.social
Thanks to all my followers who made this little experiment of a second, general purpose retro channel a thing. 500 followers and growing. Topics: MSDOS gaming, Foenix Retro Systems, C64 and everything non-Mac
youtube.com/@anybitf...
October 13, 2025 at 7:37 PM
1bit.bsky.social
"Guys, if anybody here has been on the edge of wanting to purchase a F256K2, Now would be a great time to do so, so you can secure a spot in the next batch, because after that I don't know when I am going to make more. -Stef"

translation: decide today or miss out for an indeterminate time!
links...
wedge style computer in a black case, with red, black and yellow keycaps - the F256K2 from Foenix Retro Systems
October 7, 2025 at 10:41 PM
1bit.bsky.social
it's time for a Foenix Game Jam again. The theme is "polish" and make an effort to make a complete game, at least a notch or 2 above tech demo! With 2 months, the odds improve quite a lot. Here's the itch io link: itch.io/jam/foenix-bfg
discord: discord.gg/9vjUEGgcUS
banner image for "Big Fall Game Jam 2025". Has a colorful blue, purple, orangey background with fall elements (leaves, halloween stuff) et winter (christmas tree lights). The dates are begin= october 17th and end = december 15th, in 2025. The theme is "polished product!". There are prizes to be won.
October 6, 2025 at 3:04 PM
1bit.bsky.social
bing bong finally got a VGM file playing engine in C on the F256K2, with my file picker of course
that's a LONG LONG LONG TIME coming holy grail for me, finally had the chops to understand it all. took less than 24 hours. It still has minor bugs ofc.
October 4, 2025 at 2:05 PM
1bit.bsky.social
New shirt design on my store "Hang in there, you got this"
1bitfeverdreams.thre...
a black t-shirt with an image from the game of Dark Castle, in black and white. The hapless hero is hanging on a rope. You can see many other ropes with rats sliding down. There are some platforms with yet more rats. A flying gargoyle is heading straight for the hero. Things look dire. The words "hang in there, you got this" are written beneath the image, completing the classic meme of (de)motivational poster
September 30, 2025 at 5:44 PM
1bit.bsky.social
It's been a while, I overhauled my link.tree with categories to my web stuff, w/ my coding projects repo (Macintosh and F256K2). I also launched a merch threadless store, there's a brand t-shirt and that silly Ultima VII t-shirt I always wanted, haha.

linktr.ee/1bitfeverd...
black t-shirt with a front logo for 1bit fever dreams. It features Ace Harding, detective hero from the game Déjà Vu from ICOM simulations, a mac game from 1985, deep in thought and sharp shadows on his face. His thought cloud show the lobby from Dark Castle, a Silicon Beach Mac game from 1986. The round 1Bit logo is also center, and the words 'Fever Dreams' flank it. black t-shirt of the intro menu screen of the Origins game Ultima VII, the Black Gage. Under the blue and black lettering of 'Ultima VII', we see the regular 4 menu options that you get when starting up in this game.
September 28, 2025 at 9:17 PM
1bit.bsky.social
I designed the PC Gameport Party for vintage PCs that have a DB15 game port last year to allow 2 joysticks splitting the axes and buttons, or 1 joystick getting everything (switch), midi in and midi out. You can order it at Joe's computer museum jcm-1.com/product/pc-g...
A PCB marked "PC Gameport party" with 2 DB15 sockets for joystick cables, 2 DIN5 sockets for MIDI cable and a last DB15 sockets on the right end for a cable that connects to a PC.
September 27, 2025 at 12:16 PM
1bit.bsky.social
Just playing a few rounds of Star Control II Melee mode in 2025 with my 8 year old daughter, a typical Saturday morning activity of #msdos of gaming. We are both use Gravis gamepad pros thanks to a PC Gameport Party
A vintage beige PC is seen with the game star control II on the CRT monitor. We see the hands of 2 players holding gravis gamepads. Various vintage equipment adorn the desk.
September 27, 2025 at 12:07 PM
1bit.bsky.social
One of these 3 recent big box PC games recent acquisitions is not as well known as the 2 others...
3 PCboxes laid together on a countertop. traffic department 2192 - rather pink box with a futuristic cityscape. Wing Commander 3d space combat simulator with a spaceship coming at us in space and wing commander 3, a gold box CD ROM classic. Close up of traffic department 2192 The back of the box for traffic department 2192 with a few gameplay screenshots, we see cutscenes and a gameplay shot of a hover ship moving across streets between buildings. A brochure for more products from the company and the lone 3.5 inch disk floppy for traffic department 2192
September 26, 2025 at 8:18 PM
1bit.bsky.social
I just tried to waste an incredible amount of actions in that screen in the emulator website infiniteMac and I can't trigger it on that attempt. I died the normal way by wasting too much time on the main quest
September 24, 2025 at 1:27 AM
1bit.bsky.social
oh wow, I have no idea how to use this.

6809 core for the F256K2 running NitrOS-9.
This is brand new from today for the K2, months after being developped and used on the Jr2.

a wedge computer F256K2 at the bottom powered on, and a LCD showing the blue background splash screen of NitrOS-9 there yellow text indicating that level 2 is loaded. the shell version is displayed and a prompt is awaiting for text commands.
August 26, 2025 at 11:12 PM
1bit.bsky.social
2 projects colliding:

-20 year old Sound Driver Macintosh code (pre System 6.0.3) doing sound the old way
-My code in summer 2025: MIDI input driving the previous

youtube.com/shorts/U...
multiple views of a midi piano, an oscilloscope on a bench, the text: 'MIDI input can drive this Mac 4-tone synth!', a black and white screen capture of a triangle wave and a view of a Mac Plus' screen running that program that is defining that triangle wave with various buttons and checkboxes to control to which channel this is sent.
August 24, 2025 at 5:19 PM
1bit.bsky.social
Thanks to everyone out there sticking around and trusting I'll continue to put out interesting bits about old compact Macintoshes, a good chunk of it about programming them!

www.youtube.com/@1bi...
channel analytics screenshot from youtube studio, indicating 1500 subscribers and various other stats in the last 28 days.
August 24, 2025 at 12:16 PM
1bit.bsky.social
new video:

Let's code MIDI in C on old Macs!
youtu.be/MToGjFoWsFU
a Mac Plus showing the MIDI logo in black on a white background, full screen. There are programming books laying about, a coffee mug and a small MIDI piano-keytar on a table.
August 10, 2025 at 8:23 PM
1bit.bsky.social
scopes are cool. and decoding MIDI is cool. This was today's announcement. Thank you.
a Rigoal oscilloscope with a frozen image showing a digital signal of highs (5V) and lows (0V) being decoded into bytes. The screen shows the bytes '90', '3C' and '64'. This is a MIDI command of Note On, for middle C at velocity 0x64.
August 8, 2025 at 4:33 PM
1bit.bsky.social
DESPAIR NOT, FELLOW VINTAGE PC NERDS:

the inital stock of 20 PC Gameport Party sold down to 3 units, but 20 more are arriving shortly.
Your national nightmare is over. What can it do? Keep reading.

1/4
3rd rendering of a small blue PCB called 'PC Gameport Party' with the markings of v2 (2024) and youtube.com @1BitFeverDreams. We can see two 15 pin joystick sockets on the board for JOY1 and JOY2 a MIDI in socket and a MIDI out socket. There's a MODE switch that toggles between 1 player and 2 players. Finally, there's a last gameport socket that plugs to a vintage PC. Underside view of the pcb rendering with the markings: '1 Player mode: Joy 1 gets B1, B2, B3, B4, X1, Y1, X2, Y2' and '2 Players mode: Joy 1 gets B1, B2, X1, Y1 and Joy2 gets B3, B4, X2, Y2'
August 7, 2025 at 2:02 PM
1bit.bsky.social
I checked out this MOD player on a Mac Plus and modified it to have a standard file picker. The project is from 'MIST' who ported mod tracker playing code from Atari to the Mac (makes sense, both 68000 cpus!).

1/2
picture of a Mac Plus with a file dialog that shows 3 items: the program NanoMacTracker, NIRVANA.MOD and spacedeb.mod the buttons on the dialog say: Eject, Drive, Open and Cancel. the first item is highlighted in black
August 6, 2025 at 9:29 PM
1bit.bsky.social
DESPAIR NOT, FRIENDOS:

the inital stock of 15 MIDI selectors (3x3) sold down to 1 unit, but 15 more are arriving shortly.
Your national nightmare is over.

1/2
3d rendering of a small PCB board for the 3x3 midi selector. We can see 6 MIDI din5 sockets on the left and right sides. 2 switches near the middle and the text '3x3 MIDI Selector v1.1 (2025)', a small piano graphic and the MIDI logo underside of the PCB showing 'This selector connects one MIDI device from the ABC side to one MIDI device on the 123 side. Only one path stays active'. near the bottom, we see a circular 1Bit bitmap logo and the URL 1BitFeverDreams.com
August 6, 2025 at 4:20 PM
1bit.bsky.social
check out my gameplay video of Titan (1989) for Macintosh in black and white, 60 fps.

youtu.be/W7ZIj2uOsaQ
1Bit Fever Dreams in front of the black and white title screen of Titan, a Macintosh video game. the word Titan is written in angular special font with stars and horizontal lines. The main part of the screen shows abstract distanced cubes in various gray patterns. There's a shiny black ball in the bottom left. There's a fox-like cartoon character in the bottom right.
August 1, 2025 at 3:38 PM