220806
nerd facts™: the atari 2600 chip uses a clock divider for tones, so the base tuning is technically a "subharmonic" series on an inaudible frequency. on NTSC the tuning "resolution" is around 14 cents near middle C, doubling for every octave up and halving for every octave down. i think the crunchier timbres also give you worse tuning resolution than the pure squares since they have longer periods but are still tied to the same clock
on the pokey there's some mischief you can do to get better tuning accuracy by combining the clocks of two channels but i'm not sure if that's a thing on the tia/2600 at all
edit: as a consequence of the clock divider thing, you should be able to construct just-intonation scales on specific highly-divisible clock divisions... for example, you can get a 5-limit diatonic scale (ptolemy/zarlino) on a tonic of division 180 (~174 Hz). i don't know of any software that's designed to use the chip in this way though
on the pokey there's some mischief you can do to get better tuning accuracy by combining the clocks of two channels but i'm not sure if that's a thing on the tia/2600 at all
edit: as a consequence of the clock divider thing, you should be able to construct just-intonation scales on specific highly-divisible clock divisions... for example, you can get a 5-limit diatonic scale (ptolemy/zarlino) on a tonic of division 180 (~174 Hz). i don't know of any software that's designed to use the chip in this way though
