Re: A2 Music and Sound FAQ/Info Guide v1.1

[feedle@kaiwan.com (Feedlebom)]

Ian Schmidt (irsman@iastate.edu) wrote:

: At about the same time as the first sequencers were arriving, computers began
: to get sound chips with some semi-decent capabilities.  Machines such as the
: TI-99/4A and Atari 800 had chips capable of playing at least 3 independent
: tones at any one time.  However, the tones were preset, usually to a square
: wave, which has very little musical interest.  This went to the next step when
: a young engineer developed the VIC sound chip for the Commodore 64 computer.
: The VIC chip could play 4 tones at once, and each of the tones could be
: selected from a range of several waveforms.  In addition, advanced effects
: such as "ring modulation" were avalible on this chip.  The C=64 soon allowed
: many to compose some amazing tunes, but the best was yet to come. 

Point of order: the sound chip on the Commodore 64 was called SID.  The
VIC chip was the video chip.  (SID = Sound Interface Device, VIC = Video
Interface Chip).