Atari Punk Console

Manufacturer

Jimmie P. Rodgers, USA.

Hackability Level

high, the perfect hackable device, you can do what you want with it

The Atari Punk Console is a simple and popular DIY noisemaker circuit providing low-fi sound effects that resemble classic Atari console games from the 1980s.

The original circuit was developed by Forrest M. Mims III, and published in a Radio Shack booklet: “Engineer’s Notebook: Integrated Circuit Applications” (1980). It was named the Atari Punk Console by Kaustic Machines, due to the similarity of the sounds it makes to an Atari 2600.

This is the Jimmie P. Rodgers version, a good circuit to build for beginners.

The kit includes

• PCB
• 556 Timer
• Two 500K Pots
• 1K R
• 10K R
• 4K7 R
• .01uF Cap
• .1uF Cap
• 10uF Cap
• 3.5mm Mono Jack
• Speaker
• Two Knobs
• Switch
• 9v Strap

You'll need an additional case of your choice to put the kit into. See the "hack it" page for fun examples.

At last, you can learn how to build it by reading this dedicated page from Jimmie's web site. You can also start from scratch by downloading the PCB files since it is an open source project.