Coincidentally I am doing research into this topic and here is a great article that you all would find on topic to this discussion
https://www.vintagecomputer.net/CISC367/creative%20computing%20mar-apr%201977%20UDel-Sound-Synthisizer.pdf I have one of the U of Delaware Plato Synths btw...working to get it running eventually. Just need a Plato or a way to emulate it. Bill On Tue, Jul 11, 2023 at 10:51 AM William Donzelli via cctalk < [email protected]> wrote: > The Synclavier I was commercially available in 1977, based off the > Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer of earlier times. The core was a New > England Digital minicomputer architecture (they did sell just the > minicomputer to the military, as a side). > > The truth is that there were quite a few digital synths in labs in 1977. > > -- > Will > > On Tue, Jul 11, 2023 at 10:22 AM W2HX via cctalk <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > And by 1979 there was the fairlight... > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairlight_CMI > > > > > > 73 Eugene W2HX > > Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos > > > > >Speaking of old computerized music playing technology, there are two > from the PLATO system at the University of Illinois that are perhaps the > earliest of all in their category and not all that well known. > > > > The first of the two is the GSW (Gooch Synthetic Woodwind), which is a > four voice, 7 levels per voice, square wave synthesizer. It's fully > documented in Sherwin's US patent 4,206,675. That one was attached to the > auxiliary device port of a PLATO terminal and driven from the host > computer, at 1200 bps. It worked quite well for playing music and was > widely used for music education. It's a very simple device as you can see > from the full schematics (which are, surprisingly, given in the patent). > That patent was filed in 1977 but the invention is somewhat older, perhaps > 1975 or 1976. > > > > The followon to that is the GCS (Gooch Cybernetic Synthesizer), > unfortunately not well documented. That's a 16 voice programmable waveform > (256 words by 16 bits per voice), more levels (256?), driven as a > peripheral off the 8080-based "programmable PLATO terminal" from a program > running in that terminal. So the musical score level definition of what to > play still came from the host, still at 1200 bps, but the attack/decay etc. > shaping would happen in the terminal. That one was a bit of an electrical > muddle, with memory, logic, and D/A per voice followed by a 16 input > combiner. Getting the analog parts to work right was a hairy task with far > too many trimpots. Sherwin vowed that any followup would be digital all > the way to one final D/A, which of course later became the answer in the PC > sound cards, but if he did that it was after I left. The GCS was built > around 1977. There were some interesting related pieces of work, such as a > speed-sensing piano keyboard (so unlike an electronic organ you could have > dynamics, exactly as on a piano), a music editing system with a score > printing program to print on a dot matric (electrostatic) printer, and some > other stuff. > > > > I'm not sure if the GCS is the earliest fully programmable waveform > digital music synthesizer, but if not it is close. > > > > paul > > >
