28 Mar
2006
28 Mar
'06
5:25 a.m.
David Griffith wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Jim Leonard wrote:
...
I just did a google search and there is a patent on the chip -- it has
already expired. US Patent 4,677,890.
The chip is a hybrid digital/analog chip. Duplicating it via pure
digital means would be hard. Apparently too the chip had bugs and so
are unspecified, but people exploited those bugs for generating sound
effects.
David Griffith wrote:
Theoretically, the SID handbook published by Commodore should be enough to
recreate the SID. Since NMOS isn't used very much anymore, that may be a
roadblock to making exact copies. There are some xrays of the SID on the
web, which would be a big help. Here's a guy who's doing a very good job
at replicating the SID on FPGA.
I am a complete noob on this subject matter
(something that is most
likely going to get me booed off the stage in about five seconds) but
wouldn't there be a way to just, I don't know, slice open the chip
somehow and trace things to reproduce the chip exactly? (Ignore
patent/copyright issues for now, I'm just curious in the technical
feasibility of the process.) Is something like that possible?