The musical efforts of many, from enthusiastic amateurs to professionals, throughout the history of computers have been gathered and archived by dedicated teams. Some of these are ongoing projects, as even today there’s new music being made for even the rarest platforms. Here’s a list of resources.

“Chiptune refers to a collection of related music production and performance practices sharing a history with video game soundtracks. The evolution of early chiptune music tells an alternate narrative about the hardware, software, and social practices of personal computing in the 1980s and 1990s.”

Highly unusual, very little potential but tremendously charming. The noise of data, perhaps known to some as playing ‘software tapes’ in regular cassette players, in this case with the classic tape drive of the Commodore 64. Unorthodox put to ‘use’ by a music editor with a graphical interface.

The 8bit communities have adapted to trends like podcasts. Since 2008 has nearly ended, it’s time to mention a small selection of those wonderful compilations which are a must-have on your mp3 player.