Sidstick: Pocket Chiptunes Player

Step 12 Usage & Downloads

Usage

Using the SIDstick is simple. Flip on the power switch (located on the battery box), and it will start playing the first song (alphabetically by filename) on the memory card. Pushing the 'play/pause' button will stop / start the music, and previous / next will let you skip tracks.

When loading up your memory card with tunes, keep in mind two things;

1 - The SIDstick will only recognize filenames in an '8.3' format. This means you need to keep filenames to 8 characters with a 3 character extension. 'song.dmp' is okay, but 'thisisasong.dmp' is too many characters. The SIDstick will skip over any tracks that have too many characters in the filename.

2 - .sid files need to be converted to .dmp files before they'll play. This is a really brief process and Johannes has built a cross-platform converter with a nice little UI. The Windows version is right here, and Mac and Linux version should be ready in just a few days.

That's it!  Enjoy your SIDstick!

Downloads

Everything is available under the MIT License, which is basically public domain:
SIDstick firmware: Initial version. Check the project page for updated versions.
Schematic - pdf, .dch
PCB layout - pdf, .dip
Hi-res photos for this howto are on flickr.

The SIDstick is available as a kit from Gadget Gangster