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Spectrum Sound Effects in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

sj_howlettsj_howlett
edited July 2014 in Sinclair Miscellaneous
Recently, I was watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and there was a scene where it sounded as if a Speccy sound effect was being used very subtly in the background.

The scene is just after the moment when Kirk and his crew sling shot around the sun in their stolen Klingon Bird of Prey.

The experience momentarily renders them all unconscious and they fall into some sort of dream like sequence. Just as that moment ends you can hear what sounds like a game being loaded on a Speccy?

Maybe it's not a Speccy, but another 8-Bit computer of that era, but it sounds Speccy-ish to me.
Post edited by sj_howlett on

Comments

  • sj_howlettsj_howlett
    edited June 2014
    <looks up>

    Yeah that post wasn't geeky at all :)
  • BiNMaNBiNMaN
    edited June 2014
    I know the scene you mean, it's some sort of analogue data stream may be from an 8bit machine or possible some kind of fax/modem
  • MykePMykeP
    edited June 2014
    If you compare the waveforms you'll see it's actually Robocop 128K.

    Amazingly, even though the film was released in 1986, they were able to use the actual time travel mechanism that propels the story in order to bring back a copy of the game cassette from 1988!

    (Possibly.)
    Myke-P
  • sj_howlettsj_howlett
    edited June 2014
    MykeP wrote: »
    If you compare the waveforms you'll see it's actually Robocop 128K.

    Amazingly, even though the film was released in 1986, they were able to use the actual time travel mechanism that propels the story in order to bring back a copy of the game cassette from 1988!

    (Possibly.)

    Ah I see where you are going with the ole waveform analysis, however the amplitude at 7 seconds into the recording dips considerably thus suggesting this could be Chase HQ.

    Easy mistake to make though :)
  • zxbrunozxbruno
    edited June 2014
    I used to think any data noise was from a Spectrum.... When I found out other computers and slower modems made a similar noise, I was disappointed. I also remember tuning in to radio stations broadcasting a noise that sounded like a loading screen. Turned out it was something else (forgot the name).
  • Alessandro GrussuAlessandro Grussu
    edited June 2014
    I saw the film on home video in 1988 together with a mate who also owned a Spectrum and we both noticed it. We believed it was unlikely, although possible, that a Hollywood production could feature sound effects from a simple British 8-bit machine. "Maybe it is something that sounds just like it", we thought.
    Spectrumpedia, the most comprehensive book ever written about the Spectrum - Zankle Soft - Corrections for games incompatible with the +2A/+3 - TAP files for DivIDE/DivMMC - SetoLOAD fast tape loading scheme
  • GrazGraz
    edited June 2014
    I always took it to be Speccy sounds. That's the word from most people who have seen the film anyway, so I just go with it. Yup, it's a Speccy unless proven otherwise. Maybe they rescued Miremare in a previous mission (inbetween bringing Spock back to life and saving the whales.)
  • weesamweesam
    edited June 2014
    zxbruno wrote: »
    I also remember tuning in to radio stations broadcasting a noise that sounded like a loading screen. Turned out it was something else (forgot the name).

    Wasn't the song "Cannonball" by the Breeders was it;-)
  • Black HoleBlack Hole
    edited June 2014
    Well, we should remember that Apple I and Apple II tapes sounded almost equal to Spectrum ones.

    It was Steve Wozniak who chose a FSK modulation scheme for tape saving... some years earlier than Sinclair engineers.
  • leespoonsleespoons
    edited June 2014
    This has come up before on comp.sys.sinclair:
    Alan Cox wrote:
    >>13 - You can make the sound that the Spectrum makes when it is loading.
    >And noticed that the Klingon ship appeared to make said sound
    >after the time travel bits in Trek, The Voyage Home.
    The sound in question in Trek IV from the radio noise is actually amateur
    radio AFSK at 1200 baud, similar to the Spectrum 1500 baud AFSK but not
    the same. Whats even funnier is someone with the right tools (a cray I
    believe, software FM filters, clock recovery etc) recovered the amateur
    radio packet in question and identified it. Then confirmed the apparent
    sender really sent it.

    So there.

    Alan

    (link to post here)

    A sample of Sabre Wulf loading was definitely used on both CSI: Miami and The Wire though :)
    The comp.sys.sinclair crap games competition 2015
    WhenIWasCruel wrote: »
    "Let's not be childish. Let's play Spectrum games."
  • richlrichl
    edited June 2014
    Black Hole wrote: »
    Well, we should remember that Apple I and Apple II tapes sounded almost equal to Spectrum ones.

    It was Steve Wozniak who chose a FSK modulation scheme for tape saving... some years earlier than Sinclair engineers.

    I think we have a more plausible answer to the mystery here!

    I just tried converting some Apple tapes from this archive (http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/index.html) and not only do they sound identical to Spec ones but WAV2TZX seems to convert them without any problems. Well, put it this way, I could see what looked like a coherent program when I viewed the resulting TZX in a text editor.

    Without finding out who did the audio for the film and asking them I think it'd be far likely to be an Apple rather than a Spec but I suppose there is a really slim chance that a US-based sound guy working on a Star Trek movie had a fetish for British 8-bit computers. I'm sure Mr Spock's best guess would be an Apple, however, and I'd feel safer about one of his guesses than most other people's facts. ;)

    EDIT: Or obviously it could be the radio thingy linked to above. Darn that time travel and slow typing combo!
  • leespoonsleespoons
    edited June 2014
    richl wrote: »
    I just tried converting some Apple tapes from this archive (http://www.brutaldeluxe.fr/projects/cassettes/index.html) and not only do they sound identical to Spec ones but WAV2TZX seems to convert them without any problems. Well, put it this way, I could see what looked like a coherent program when I viewed the resulting TZX in a text editor.

    Now that's interesting... just downloaded one and it sounds just like a Speccy block of data, doesn't it? (just with a very long leader and no header)

    Considering this was late '70s I wonder why this method wasn't used for the ZX80/ZX81, or other systems like the Commodore?
    The comp.sys.sinclair crap games competition 2015
    WhenIWasCruel wrote: »
    "Let's not be childish. Let's play Spectrum games."
  • Black HoleBlack Hole
    edited June 2014
    Well, of course Steve Wozniak didn't invent such kind of modulation, he just chose to apply FSK for one of the first commercially available home computers in 1976, but frequency shift keying was also used in modems and other technical equipments aimed to automatize telegraph at the beginning of XX century.

    Furthermore, one year earlier in 1975 some experiments promoted by Byte magazine, tried to define a standard for computing communication. According to Kansas City standard article in Wikipedia, those efforts were used also in the first wave of american computers and later into BBC Micro and MSX.
  • SaltorSaltor
    edited June 2014
    Graz wrote: »
    I always took it to be Speccy sounds. That's the word from most people who have seen the film anyway, so I just go with it. Yup, it's a Speccy unless proven otherwise. Maybe they rescued Miremare in a previous mission (inbetween bringing Spock back to life and saving the whales.)
    :lol:
    Cultural association in south Italy
    www.apuliaretrocomputing.it
    Personal site
    www.sinclairitaly.wordpress.com
  • sj_howlettsj_howlett
    edited June 2014
    Oh well, I think it's fair to say that the clever folk here have presented a strong case that the humble Speccy has yet to make it's movie debut.

    :)
  • BiNMaNBiNMaN
    edited June 2014
    sj_howlett wrote: »
    Oh well, I think it's fair to say that the clever folk here have presented a strong case that the humble Speccy has yet to make it's movie debut.

    :)

    ah but it has/will in a retro 80's style kung fu flick Kung Fury
  • hackersanonhackersanon
    edited July 2014
    MykeP wrote: »
    If you compare the waveforms you'll see it's actually Robocop 128K.
    (Possibly.)

    It's definitely not Stonkers (Kindly leave the stage! Ed)
    the-tipshop.co.uk
  • John ElliottJohn Elliott
    The data blocks in cassette data saved by the original IBM PC also sound pretty much identical to Spectrum ones (855T / 1710T on a Spectrum, 875T / 1750T on a 5150). A 5150 can easily cope with blocks saved at Spectrum timings.
  • zxbrunozxbruno
    After what I described in a similar topic a few days ago, I don't think it's Spectrum loading noise anymore.

    http://hackaday.com/2016/01/13/decoding-data-hiding-in-star-trek-iv/

    http://swling.com/blog/tag/star-trek-sounds/

    (insert sad face here)
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