Hi Randy... my thoughts on the sound expander: > The SFX Sound Expander was made by Commodore UK. It's based around a > Yamaha OPL2 FM sound generator. It was basically a SoundBlaster for > the C64/128. There were also some companion products, such as the SFX > Sound Sampler (piece o' junk) and a full-size 64 key keyboard. There > was a SEVERE lack of software to support this product. It certainly > was released in the UK and was probably only rare on this side of the > Atlantic. I had Jim Brain include it in his canonical list of CBM > products where you can also find the CBM model numbers. I doubt that > CBM could get FCC approval for the device for sale in the US, as it > seems to kick out vigorous RF at NTSC color burst frequency. It > probably screws up most of the tv sets in the neighborhood (certainly > every set in my house) when I turn it on. There is indeed an NTSC colour crystal in the case and since there's absolutely no shielding whatsoever, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing fails FCC regulations. However, there was nothing to stop Commodore putting one on, with the 3 spring-loaded contacts that touch the grounded shield in the '64 (like the REUs). As to the chip itself, well I don't think it's an OPL2 or OPL3 as these were 2 operator FM synth chips (used in Adlib and Soundblaster). The unit I have sounds very much like 4 operator FM, such as the chip inside the Megadrive or Sega System16 coin-ops. It's capable of 8 note polyphony or 6 with some *really* cheesy drum noises, but you're better off using SID for percussive sounds. Yamaha keyboards such as the DX9 or DX27 used 4 operator FM with 8 algorithms; perhaps there is documentation to be found there. More as and when I find it; I'm trying to disassemble the bundled software using an Action Replay, but it's hard-going since I don't have the AR's documentation. Merry Christmas, >richard< - This message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list. To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe | mail cbm-hackers-request@dot.tcm.hut.fi.
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