LISP c64 SID 6581 live-coding utility

sid-live is a live-coding environment for the Commodore 64's SID (Sound Interface Device) chip. Write musical patterns and loops using a ClojureScript DSL, and hear them play on your real vintage SID 6581 hardware chip through a USB SIDBlaster device. Changes to your code are hot-reloaded in real-time while the music plays, enabling an interactive workflow similar to Sonic Pi or TidalCycles but with authentic 8-bit synthesis. The tool handles precise timing client-side and sends register writes over serial to control the physical MOS 6581 chip.

• Define loops using a Clojure(Script) DSL.
• Live-reloading server hot-loads new loop while it's playing.
• Sends bytes over serial to a USB Sidblaster (tested on Tic Tac edition).

Get it

wget https://github.com/chr15m/sidlive/releases/latest/download/sidlive.mjs
chmod +x ./sid-live.mjs

# Optional: move to your path for easy access e.g.:
# mv ./sidlive.mjs ~/bin

Run it

sidlive.mjs mysong.cljs

Examples