Re: Mockingboard any good?

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article jnoyes@usa.net (The Blue Meanie) writes...
>
>   Now the only tough part will be finding software that supports it.  All of
>the Ultimas except I support it, as do a number of Electronic Arts games, but

        Actually, neither Ultima I or II support any type of sound card. The
later versions (III, IV and V) of course do. If you own an Apple IIgs, the
re-write of Ultima I supports the Ensoniq chip and gives you complete music
and sound effects within the game.

>the most entertaining use of the board that I have has to be Berzap!, a cheesy
>Berzerk clone that is downright humorous with its sound effects.  I'm dying to
>hear it with speech, so if anyone has a leftover 'B' chip, or a dead 'C' board
>please let me know.  Or if anyone knows what happened to Sweet Micro, that'd
>be nice, too. Anyways, put it in Slot 4 and have a ball, there's no drivers
>needed or anything.  If you don't have the external RCA cable, lemme know,
>I can give you the connector info.

        You might want to consider an Applied Engineering Phasor sound card.
It was more or less the top-of-the-line in Mockingboard compatible cards. It
offered 12 voices, 4 whitenoise generators and 1 speech channel, expandable
to 2 channels (Four 'AY-3-8913' chips and one 'SSI 263' speech chip onboard,
with an empty socket for a second). It had 4 watts of output, in true stereo.
Aside from native Phasor mode, it was able to emulate most Mockingboard and
clones and even the Echo+ speech card.

	Unfortunately, aside from the demo software that came shipped with
it, and Ultima V, I don't think any other _native_ Phasor software exists.
There are a handful of Mockingboard compatible titles, but they probably
number not more than a dozen or so in total. I've not been able to use 
"Echo+" mode on my Phasor card, though most else works just fine. 

	Also worth mentioning is the IIgs software emulator from MDIdeas
that could playback Phasor, Mockingboard and ALF music files. I'm sure
someone with a bit of programming skills could expand it into something
more. :) 

>                            James Noyes
>                            (jnoyes@usa.net)

Mitchell Spector
m_spect@vega.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca