Newtech - Model 6 Music Board
This board was a simple answer to anybody that wanted their S-100 computer to
synthesize music. It came out early in the S-100 board era and was probably the
first such S-100 board.
The board was clearly less than half height but had the
necessary S-100 connectors (gold plated) and was quite well priced ($60) and
popular.
The board enabled anyone with an S-100 bus computer to produce music and sound
effects. Applications include generating melodies, rhythms, sound effects,
Morse code, touch-tone synthesis etv. The Model 6 was fully assembled and
tested. Its features included selectable output port address decoding, a
latched 6-bit digital-to-analog converter, audio amplifier, speaker, volume
control, and RCA phono jack for convenient connection to your home audio
system.
The Model 6 Users Manual provides complete documentation and includes a BASIC
Language program for writing musical scores and an 8080 Assembly Language
routine for playing them. Other software has been published which can easily be
implemented on the Model 6. For example, Hal Chamberlain's "Computer Bits"
articles in the September and October 1976 issues of Popular Electronics
contained programs for tone, white noise, and "weird sound" generation, as well
as a musical frequency table and tables for touch-tone frequency generation.
Malcolm Wright's "Alphanumeric Music with Amplitude Control" was another
excellent resource for implementation of music on the Model 6 Music Board.
The detailed manual for this board can be obtained
here.
Hal Chamberlains article can be obtained
here.
This page was last modified
on
01/08/2011