| Title: | * * Computer Music, MIDI, and Related Topics * * |
| Notice: | Conference has been write-locked. Use new version. |
| Moderator: | DYPSS1::SCHAFER |
| Created: | Thu Feb 20 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Aug 29 1994 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 2852 |
| Total number of notes: | 33157 |
I'm down here in the basement of bldg 5 at the mill. People
throw out lots of things, and much of ends up here as it waits for
disposal. One things I found that's sure to go, eventually, is a
"DIGITAL Q BUS MUSIC BOARD". It's a simple affair, with two "Sound
AY-3-8912" chips by "GI", date coded 8210. The module # is EY-0105E
-MS-0101. It has a single phono jack output.
If anyone would like this module, for posterity, for a museum
donation or simply to save it from obliteration - write me on ELESYS::
and I'll gladly send it to you - through interoffice mail of course.
BTW, the person who's going to do the most with it "wins" - if it's
just going to sit in storage until it gets thrown out on your end -
it might as well remain here.
Joe
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2842.1 | GI = General Instrument | TALK::HARRIMAN | 'Politically Correct' is an oxymoron | Wed Feb 12 1992 12:18 | 10 |
Huh. Those GI chips used to be sold by Radio Shack. I remember because I bought one and played with it (I think that was the same part number). Single voice per chip, does sound effects and such. No other documentation I suppose, eh? /pjh | |||||
| 2842.2 | 3 channels per chip - 6 voice total | PRNSYS::LOMICKAJ | Jeffrey A. Lomicka | Thu Feb 13 1992 13:11 | 5 |
I recall that board was used as part of a course in Q-bus I/O or real-time programming or something like that. I know at least one person who as played with it, but he's not at DEC any more. That's the same sound chip as is in the Atari ST. | |||||
| 2842.3 | YNGSTR::BENNETT | Fri Feb 14 1992 10:01 | 22 | ||
Wow. Blast from the past.
When I first started at DEC, I was an applications engineer for the
LSI-11 Q-bus stuff. I designed that music board as an excercise in
simple Q-bus interfaces, and to be used for trade show demos.
A course developer from Ed Services heard about it, and thought it
would be the perfect complement to a course in MicroPower/Pascal that
he was writing. So I cleaned up the design a little, and we had a
group in Acton Mfg make 500 boards. I don't think the course sold very
well, and I have no idea what happened to the bulk of the boards. I
still have a few, for sentimental reasons.
There's not much to the board. The GI chip contains 8 registers, one
byte wide. The board has a hard-coded Q-bus base addresss, and the GI
registers are mapped to 8 consecutive words from the base address, one
chip for low byte and one chip for high byte address.
If anyone wants prints or other details, send me mail. I could
probably dig them up.
-Steve
| |||||
| 2842.4 | Crucial! | LARVAE::MOORE_A | Fri Feb 14 1992 10:15 | 15 | |
AY 38910
I spent a good part of the time I was supposed to be studying
engineering science at school trying to figure out how to interface
this chip to my trusty Acorn Atom (A UK micro based on the 6502).
I eventually got a few beeps and whistles out of it. Even started to
try to write a sequencer of sorts but then discovered women.
Memories ....
regards
Andrew
| |||||
| 2842.5 | ex | ELESYS::JASNIEWSKI | This time forever! | Fri Feb 14 1992 15:13 | 4 |
Seems the board has found a good home.
Joe
| |||||
| 2842.6 | More flexibility with standard products | DFN8LY::JANZEN | I can gleek upon occasion | Fri Feb 14 1992 17:08 | 3 |
Even a PDP11/23 can play 4 voices of arbitrary waveshape out a AAV11-C. A later model of a PDP11 would be able to do perfectly well. Tom | |||||