Chiptune is older than most people listening to it, and yet it sounds like nothing else. Born from the audio chips inside 1980s home computers and arcade boards, it survived its hardware era to become a genuine modern music genre - released on Bandcamp, performed live, and woven through new indie games.
What Actually Makes a Chiptune
The defining ingredient is the sound chip - the small dedicated circuit that the host machine used to generate audio. The NES used a Ricoh chip with two square-wave channels, one triangle, one noise and a DPCM sample track. The Commodore 64 used the famous SID, which gave composers filters and envelope control unheard of at the time. The Game Boy ran on its own custom audio with two pulse channels, a wave channel and noise. Each chip has its own grain, and a trained ear can tell them apart within a few seconds.
Why Constraints Made It Memorable
You had four voices, maybe five. You had no streaming, no orchestral samples and a memory budget measured in kilobytes. Composers like Koji Kondo, Yuzo Koshiro and Tim Follin had to compose around the silicon - implying chords with quick arpeggios, faking a bassline with carefully tuned noise, leaving silence on purpose to keep the channel free for an effect.
Modern Composers, Real Hardware
A surprising amount of contemporary chiptune is written on the original hardware. Trackers like FamiTracker, LSDJ for the Game Boy and DefleMask for the Mega Drive's YM2612 keep the workflow accessible. Albums by Anamanaguchi, chipzel and Inverse Phase regularly chart on Bandcamp, often performed live on stage with the original cart visible in the rig.
Where to Start Listening
Try the OST of Cave Story, then move backward to Mega Man 2 and 3 for the NES at its peak. Sample the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack for the Mega Drive's house-music personality, then jump forward to Shovel Knight's soundtrack for a modern composer working strictly inside NES limits. By the third album you will start hearing the chips themselves, not just the songs.
If you want to make some, the entry barrier is low. LSDJ on an old Game Boy with a flash cart, or FamiTracker on a laptop - either gives you the full toolset within an evening. The chips are still talking. Someone just has to ask them.