Computer simulation of an organ (fwd)

From: Charles P. Hobbs <transit_at_primenet.com>
Date: Tue Jun 24 10:44:30 1997

This is a message I sent to the Electronic Organ list today. They were
discussing simulating a pipe organ with a computer.

I looked at the Alphasyntauri in my collection, and thought "Been there,
done that . . ."

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 1997 08:40:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Charles P. Hobbs" <transit_at_primenet.com>
Cc: EORG-L_at_CFRVM.CFR.USF.EDU
Subject: Computer simulation of an organ


Anyone here heard of the AlphaSyntauri?

This was an organ keyboard, connected to an Apple II computer. The Apple
was equipped with sixteen 8-bit DACs (digital-analog converters). The
DACs converted digital waveforms (sequences of numbers in the Apple's RAM)
to analog, audio signals.

The AlphaSyntauri could play up to eight notes simultaneously (2 DACs were
normally assigned to each note). Tonalities could be easily selected via
software. There were even Fourier-analysis tools allowing the users to
make and manipulate their own waveforms.

This instrument was popular in the early 80's, but died out before the
age of MIDI. By that time, its output (8 bit DACs, relatively low sampling
rate) had made the instrument obsolete for most serious musicians (I have
one as a collector's item).

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Received on Tue Jun 24 1997 - 10:44:30 BST