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[Ashura]

I'm very interested in getting toy guns to play the chip tunes I want them to. Is there an efficient way? What do I need to do?
Thanks in advance!

[m0d]

say what? toy guns?

[Ashura]

Those toy laser guns / space guns that make weird noises if you pull the trigger. Basically I'm looking for a way to modify the sound they make and it would be neat to make them play some standard chiptune files.

[m0d]

as far as i know all those things have are just a D-A converter and memory with a small processor for just pushing the raw memory (sound samples) straight to the D-A converter. so playing something that requires a CPU routine on those things seems very unlikely. You might want to look up "Circuit bending" though. That seems more appropriate use for these toys as sound generators.

Still, maybe someone else has some answers

Very very strange topic post i have to say! Welcome to the forums nontheless and I hope you get somewhere with your project.

[Ashura]

Hm, yes, I know about circuit bending, but that's not what I'm looking for. I want to be able to pull the trigger of the space gun so it starts playing a desired (short) chiptune.

I figured I would probably have to add another chip (would an Atari sound chip work theoretically?) to the gun's interiors and maybe an additional power source.. And for reading the files, I don't really have a clue. Either I'd have to get it to read .xm/mod files from some storage medium somehow or I'd have to convert it to wav-files or something first.. The first option would be more desireable, but I'm really fine with everything as long as it works.

Sorry, I'm not all that experienced with that kind of stuff.. But I really want to get it to work somehow! :/

[phate]

If I'm not mistaken, there are chips that you can store raw sample data on that will play back whatever you store on them. I'm sure that with some time and effort, you could replace the sound chip on your toy gun with one of those.

Of course, that would involve understanding how your gun works in the first place, and you might need to add some extra components. (the circuit probably requires a 555 oscillator)  It's definitely possible, but you'll have quite a time of it without a decent electronics background.

However, there is no way you'll get mods or xms playing on there. It's going to have to be wav or nothing.

[Saga Musix]

maybe you need an atmel microcontroller?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuvwfJhWyik

[Eagle]

If you already have this toy gun, I suggest you somehow photograph the internals so we can examine it further. I could probably help, but I don't know what exactly their internal parts consists of.

Most likely, like m0d said, the board consists of a memory and a small processor, which pushes data to a D/A, and then sends the analog signal to a small piazo speaker or similiar device for play-back.

Modify the toy gun extensively and you could have something really interesting. I hope you have some experience with fundamental electronics (ohms law, blah, blah) before you sink your teeth into this little project, however.