Do you make chiptunes? Help us score these retro-videos.
Here's the deal: Boing Boing has come into possession of some wicked footage of an anonymous Atari Computer Camp excursion that has everything you could ever want from grainy stock video: namely, yellowed and over-saturated money shots of retro-tech, and a bevy of over-eager and still-innocent pre-teens banging out BASIC to make crossword crosses out of the words Van Halen (no joke!) and gawping at the awesome limitless power and future of computers.
Here's the catch: neither of the videos -- the first clocking in at about seven minutes, and the second coming in at seven and a half -- have any sound at all.
And so: given Offworld/Boing Boing's sizable audience of chiptune/junk-tech musicians, we thought we'd throw the score open to you. If you're interested in submitting some of your music for the videos, which will be broadcast on BBtv at a later date, send an email to brandon@offworld.com with the subject line "Atari Computer Camp" and we'll dig through and select our favorites from there. Bonus points awarded for (but certainly not limited to) composing on actual 8-bit Atari tech.
Hit the jump for more inspirational shots of the kids at work (and play).
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jaytkay
#1 – 6:12 PM May 21, 2009
OMFG I hate pretty much everything in offworld But I eagerly await this!
gamingdeadjosh
#2 – 8:42 PM May 21, 2009
I demand you score both videos with Killing Me Softly by The Fugees.
Jack
#3 – 8:56 PM May 21, 2009
So with all the talk on BoingBoing about creative commons licensing and "copyfight" is there a reason why the raw footage of these videos are not simply digitized and released to the public so individual users can edit/sync things their own way?
Brandon Boyer
#4 – 10:13 PM May 21, 2009
Jeff: Awesome.
Jack: We're not ruling out future remix/mashups (I'd love to see what the Fensler/TRS-80/Wreck & Salvage set could do with them), but for the first pass we're going this route.
SUPERHITOPS
#5 – 11:21 PM May 21, 2009
What #3/Jack said! You should feature the curated/competition based remixes on Offworld. But also let everyone else get in on the fun and use the footage in our own ways. I was disappointed not to find a link to a torrent of the footage at the bottom of the post.
Jack
#6 – 12:28 AM May 22, 2009
Brandon, I trust you on this. But will say: It’s not every day one gets to see great raw footage of Atari Home Computer users. As a proud owner of an 400, 800 and then an 800xl back in the day, I promise to do something neat with the raw footage when it is released.
tubacat
#7 – 2:40 AM May 22, 2009
Just seeing the screen fonts brings back memories ... I was Computer Director for an Atari Computer Camp in the summer of 1983 or 84, back when computers were fun, and kids wrote video games in Logo with multiple sprites...It may look dorky these days, but you could really do a lot. In fact, I wrote some nice fractal music, using the Logo turtle heading to play tones at different frequencies, while the turtle completed a snowflake curve...
Anonymous Anonymous
#8 – 8:27 AM May 22, 2009
Can I submit wave files? Each are under 1 minute.
I made them as audio loops.
arnej
#9 – 9:07 AM May 22, 2009
As a counselor at the Atari Camp features in those videos, I'd love to see them again - with or without music! The teacher in the pic is Richard Pugh, and "Teleport" was a San Francisco band that the little girl he's working with was a fan of. If these are the films I'm thinking of (and based on the stills, I'm pretty sure they are), then this was the ACC in San Diego, summer of 1982.
Any other ACC alums out there?
Arne Jamtgaard
Brandon Boyer
#10 – 9:40 AM May 22, 2009
I was hoping that posting these would actually bring some of the people involved out of the woodwork, that's fantastic.
And I desperately want to use that Teleport shot as an album cover. With 'Margaret's kind permission, of course.
arnej
#11 – 10:21 AM May 22, 2009
Ah, I wondered if anyone else knew who that was...
ginneh
#12 – 3:46 PM May 22, 2009
So glad I saw this link, I *knew* it had to be the computer camp Arne had been at, so I sent it to him. The Intarwebs so ROCK.
::highfives the Scandihoovian::
The Bub Bard
#13 – 5:01 PM May 22, 2009
Awesome find. And this comment thread is simply heartwarming. :)
Submitted a couple of songs.
Torley
#14 – 10:42 PM May 22, 2009
Submitted with smiles. Love how the memories come flooding back. Gosh.
Anonymous Anonymous
#15 – 9:46 PM May 25, 2009
Kraftwerk, "Home Computer" (1981)
bishely
#16 – 10:27 AM May 26, 2009
:(
At the risk of pointlessly echoing Jack, I'm bummed that I can't download the footage and write something tailor-made to the vid. Might submit a tune or two later on, but.....
FredTheCat
#17 – 12:02 AM May 27, 2009
Ah yes, Atari Computer Camp...I went to the San Diego one, not sure which year (82 maybe?), for a two-week session that ended up with me talking my parents into extending for another two weeks. It was a blast!
I played a whole lot of Pinball Construction Set there. I learned LOGO there. I wrote and performed a bad computer-oriented sketch for the Drama performance. I learned (with my roommates) that dorm rooms at UCSD (I think it was UCSD, right?) had connecting trap doors in the ceiling of the closets.
Another fond memory of that trip was the fact that one of my cute female fellow-campers never wore underwear beneath her Dolphin shorts and liked to stand over those of us kicking back on the grass during lunch. I had no idea what I was looking at but I liked it! :) Sigh...I miss Dolphins :/
I don't recall any folks from the camp by name at this late date, but I do remember one of our teachers was named Tad. Nice guy!
-FredThe(AtariComputerCamp)Cat