Q Bus Music Board

[allison]

On 2/21/17 9:17 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
> Hi
>
> This has been discussed on this mailinglist before (back in -95 and
> -03). But with very little information came out of that.
>
> I'm curious about the "Q Bus Music Board" that DEC made. What system was
> it used in, what software was available that took advantage of it, how
> would you program it?
>
> All I know is from the cctalk threads and a few pictures from an ebay
> auction, with missleading description, that I missed out on. The number
> on the green handle is "93 08036" and on the PCB there is the number
> "EY-0105E-MS-0101" and it looks like it has two AY-3-8192 synthesiser
> chips.
>
> So, does anyone know anything more?
>
> And if anyone has one they could part with, I'd be interested.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Pontus.
>
The board was called Gigilo.

I have one and last I tried it it was operational I also have a minor 
chunk of code to do
some music under RT11.   Currently deeply buried and not in my easy 
search path.

It was as believed at the time I worked for DEC that it was developed 
internally for
things like DECworld.   Its never been clear if it was for QBUS PDP-11 
use or MicroVAX.
I don't think it was ever made in quantity and mine is a unit that was 
floating around
terminal and printers engineering in a random 11/23 that I still have.

The number on the handle was the handle part number and not relevant to 
any product.
The AY-3 are the sound generator chips as it does two channels of sound.
The EY-0105e may be a document (spec or drawing).

Allison