The pokey is where you go if you have been bad, or are suspected of being bad. It is jail, lockup, where they fingerprint, photograph, and get information about you. If they have lots of dirt on you, then you do not get to leave. Ima goin to the pokey.

more specifically (doubling up on my node, neat)

The county jail. "The clatter (patrol wagon) backed up to Sadie's nautch-joint (brothel) and whipped the broads down to the pokey.

- american underworld dictionary - 1950
Pokey is also the name of Gumby's horse.
Selby loves Gumby, and one time she bought a Gumby and Pokey t-shirt that was too little, so she gave it to me.
Then my penpal Ed sent me a t-shirt that was too big, so I gave it to her.
I love my roommate.
A pokey is the slang term given to the artifact used for poking marijuana (and/or tobacco) further into the rolled joint or cigarette. This is usually done to make room for a roach or to pack the contents down to make it a more tightly rolled.

Good pokey material can come from lollipop sticks to the removable flint in a clipper lighter.

Pokey was a microprocessor in the Atari 8 bit range of computers (eg The Atari 800 XL and 130 XE). Its job was handling digital to analog and analog to digital conversion.

Sound

Pokey was most well known as the sound generator chip. It supported the following.

  • 4 channels with a 2.5 octave range or 2 channels with an 8 octave range. You could also use 1 8 octave and 2 2.5 octave channels together.
  • Sound distortion using either 9 or 17 bit poly counters to add randomness.
  • Software volume control.
  • A special effects channel. One "trick" I came across played a continuous low pitched note, and then cycled this channel from 0 to 255, resulting in a techno soundtrack!

Although there was no official playback of digitised sounds, some people hacked this in using the software volume control.

Tapes

Standard Atari tapes (on normal cassette tapes) were read and written at 600 baud using a standard FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) system. Both the A-D and D-A conversion was handled by Pokey.

The Atari 8-bit machines all used custom cassette recorders, which generally meant that tape loads were more reliable than those which used standard units. Some also drew their power from the host machine. Additionally, the computer signal was only recorded on one track, with the 2nd track being played through the TV's speakers. Some games used this as a way to play music during the load.

Paddles

Two paddle controllers could be connected into each joystick port. The A-D conversion was handled by Pokey.

Pok"ey (?), a.

See Poky.

 

© Webster 1913.

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