SongCode

The original programming setup prior to APS.

SongCode was an animatronic programming system made for Pizza Time Theatre, running from 1978 to 1990.

The first known usage would be at the second location San Jose, CA (1371 Kooser Rd), with its hardware detailed in the SongCode Control System.

It was used to animate the Kooser PTT Show, Cyberamics, and later Rock-afire Explosion showtapes throughout the late 80's. The Animation Programming System (APS) would replace it in 1990, staying as the main programming software till present day.

Software

The software was written in the PDP-11 CISC Architecture for the main PDP-11, and later PDP-11/23, that ran it. Due to the PDP-11 having 16-bit hardware, its engineers were able to expand the unit's memory with an external device to be 32k of onboard memory.

By 1978 most PDP-11 users created programs on Unix 6th Edition, which could mean SongCode was written in the C Language, though the possibility of the program being written in raw Assembly or other languages is still possible.

Encoding Format

The format is believed to be an earlier variation of what would later appear in the Studio C 3x DVD + Floppy showtape format, being a command-based structure, rather than a snapshot based one.