Re: Mocking Board Problems with IIGS

[Mitchell Spector <mitch2gs@hotmail.com>]

blake@blakespot.com (Blake Patterson) wrote:

>> 	Another option, little known to most, is a Mockingboard
>> software emulator which MDIdeas wrote for the IIgs about a decade
>> ago. It was a musical jubebox demo which played Christmas themes
>> to show off their SuperSonic stereo card. Upon closer inspection 
>> I learned it used the Ensoniq chip to emulate a dual pair (or more?) 
>> of AY-8913 chips. If you drop in music files from an ALF, Mockingboard
>> or Phasor card, it will actually play them back using the Ensoniq.
>> It's only useful if you have separate music-files however, it will
>> not work in conjunction with a bootable game disk.
>> 
>> Mitchell Spector
>> spec@vax2.concordia.ca
>
>Do you have any more info on this MDIdeas jukebox demo??  I'd love to
>see this Christmas demo on the IIgs and the fact that it's emulating a
>pair of Mockingboards is icing on the cake.
>
>Thanks.  Anyone else have info here?

    Strange resuming discussion to a post I wrote almost 6 years ago. :)
(I suppose that must have been dug up on Goggle/Deja).

    There isn't much to say, it was a demo program MDIdeas used to 
show off the stereo capability of their SuperSonic card (which just
happened to be an ALF/Mockingboard music file player). I've only
come across a butchered up copy that removed all references to
MDIdeas and its original author. In retrospect, as interesting as it 
was, it sounded almost nothing like a real Mockingboard...

    A much better program is Jimmy Huey's "ProDOS ALF Player".
It allows you to load in and play ALF/Mockingboard song files 
on a stock IIgs, but actually attempts to emulate what a *real*
AY-8910 synthesizer chip sounds like. It wasn't quite perfect
but came extremely close.

Mitchell Spector