pc soundcard and digital audio history by lyndsay williams 1980 -1989

7/29/2019 PC SoundCard and Digital Audio History by Lyndsay Williams 1980 -1989

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History of Sound Cards & Digital

Audio on PCs from 1980-89

March 26th 2004Updated 5th April 2004

Update 31/8/08

Lyndsay Williams

Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK


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Introduction

Chronological history of some of Lyndsay Williams contributions todigital audio for Personal Computers from 1980

The first soundcard design for a PC discussed

How the lack of patents and Intellectual Property protection enabledwidespread acceptance of digital audio on PCs Mention of possibly the most replicated computer bug in a pc?


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Wilmslow 1974, homeLyns first designs of music synthesiser - TTL logic


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PE Sequencer 1977 Lyndsay Robinson


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3 year interlude no sounddesigns

BSc, Hons Biomedical Electronics, University of Salford, UK, 1978- 1980


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Research 1980-82

British Aerospace Woodford, Cheshire Avionics Engineer, Patented research - noise reduction forQueens Flight (accelerometers measure out of phase propeller balance for 748 Aircraft ) (LyndsayRobinson co-inventor)

The Queen's dogs leave an aircraft of

The Queen's Flight from Aberdeen atHeathrow Airport. Queen Elizabeth isa keen dog lover, particularly of Corgis,and travels with them, whenever she can.(Associated Press)


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Inspiration from Fairlight CMI(1980)

$50,000


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Challenges for digitising audio -1980

Research no prior art published on digital audio capture none found at Xerox Parc (2004search )

How to record audio into a pc? No private, industrial or university funding support

what use is recording just 2 seconds of sound with no disc storage?

Self financed (day job, Avionics Engineer) Help from UK pioneer Alan Boothman, Clef Products music designs using Apple computers

Engineering challenges - Noise in an 8 bit system (analog/digital proximity )

New algorithms to develop, record sound, play back on a keyboard, real time pitch shifting Z80 not powerful, need to signal process every audio sample in 30us (30 instructions) Z80assembler

Must be low cost add on for games market (retail 49) So build a prototype to demo


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Fastest 8 bit analog to digitalconverter 1979

Ferranti ZN 427 8 bit analog to digital converter ADC originally used for earthquake and vibration measurement 10us conversion time

Nearest competitor was 100us Successive approximation A method for estimating the value of an

unknown quantity by repeated comparison to a sequence of knownquantities.

Much faster conversion than slope counter

Audio sampling should be > 30us (33khz)


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Digital Audio Recording


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Digital Audio Digitiser (1982 Lyndsay Robinson)


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Pitch Shifting non real time

Musical interval 1 octave = 1:2 1 semitone 1:1.059 (12th root of 2) Replay sound by incrementing sample pointer by chosen ratio E.g. to be octave higher , every 2nd sample played Octave lower every sample repeated twice Chromatic keyboard playback Z80 Assembler


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Pitch Shifting - real time (1982)

Effects real time voice pitch changing = fun! Also useful helium - divers voices , Dictaphone speed up All processing to be done real time in 30us (30 instructions) Z80 had no multiply Compression/decompression Reverse sound, echo real time pitch shift andecho simultaneously ! Similar to Xbox voice changer (different algorithm)


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TRS-80/Spectrum SoundCardPublished in Practical Computing 1982(Lyndsay Robinson)

Z80 based


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Datel Action Replay(Lyndsay Robinson)

Spectrum Computer add on New Ferranti ZN427/ 449 analog to digital converter, 8 bit, low cost Recorded sampled sound with playback, pitch shifting, echo, sound

effects, games

Lyn licensed Action Replay Sound Sampler to Datel, Stoke on Trent,UK - 1984

Sold thousands of Samplers Pre dates .WAV file type This was first real product for Datel 1984 Datel now have turnover of $150M/year (2003) mainly in Xbox

peripherals
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/hardware/feat38.html


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Commodore Sound Sampler

1984, gave up the day job (Software Engineer, Ferranti Oil & GasPlatform C software) and joined the music business (CommodoreComputers (UK) Music Sales/Watts)

Lyn sold design to Music Sales/Commodore Computers (UK) (1984)

Converted Datel design (Z80) to 6502 + MIDI Added Windows GUI Interface 1984 to Commodore 64 Sampler(Apple Lisa 1983, Microsoft Windows 1985)
http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cbm/carts/SoundSamp.gif


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Next stage after sampled sound?

Samples fine for games but need more memory for musicalinstrument samples

Limited sample memory 32kbytes/ 2 seconds = expensive

Monophonic playback due to limited MIPS of Z80, 1Mhz musicianswanted polyphonic sounds Yamaha Polyphonic FM chip OPL-1 used in games consoles 9

channels of sound Commodore 64 SID chip , only 3 channels of sound Music Sales (Europes largest music publisher ) were first customer

to use Yamaha chip for sound card for Commodore 64


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Yamaha OPL

FM Synthesis invented by Chowning 1967(Stanford)commercialised by Yamaha 1983 DX7 Keyboard

Modulated sinewaves YM3526 first used in Arcade games YM3526 used in Commodore FM SFX Sound Expander 1985 9 channels of 2-operator voices

YM3812 OPL2 (used later by Soundblaster) was an incrementalupgrade to the YM3526


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Commodore Computers UK, 1986(Williams, Watts, Music Sales)

Commodore SFX - Music Maker, Sound Studio, Sound Expander

now based on FM Synthesis
http://www.lemon64.com/museum/view.php?id=311&genre=progboxhttp://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=www.mts.net/~bbagnall/commodore/gamemaker/music%2520maker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mts.net/~bbagnall/commodore/gamemaker/info.html&h=271&w=384&sz=55&tbnid=ikdVxKffPA4J:&tbnh=83&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522music%2Bmaker%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8


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Most replicated computer bug??

Yamaha FM registers in apparently random order (like Japanese House numbers) Bug found by Williams/Watts in 1985 in YM3526 Did a workaround so quick time to market for Commodore computers Bug found again by Linux programmers when trying to emulate Soundblaster

registers

2004 - OPL2 core now integrated into the South Bridge of the motherboard's chipset Bug now in every PC? (>1 Billion?)

The twenty-two registers (20-35, 40-55, etc.) have an unusualorderdue to the use of two operators for each FM voice.

Channel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Operator 1 00 01 02 08 09 0A 10 11 12Operator 2 03 04 05 0B 0C 0D 13 14 15


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Philips MSX Sound Card 1986(Williams, Watts/ Music Sales)

NMS-1205 Added 8 bit sampled record and playback , 32Kb 9 channels FM Yamaha Y8950

MIDI, mic in, keyb


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Philips MSX FM/Sampler SoundCard


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Philips Portable Music ComposerPMC 100 1986 Williams, Watts et al

Wearable Computer Music Composer 9 Channels FM Sounds Drum machine, sequencer, multitrack 6803 Processor, 8kbyte RAM MIDI

Cassette for data/voice storage

Can be used like Walkman


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First Soundcard for PC?

Sound cards designed for Commodore (64 & Amiga) , Philips, Atari,Spectrum time to settle on a standard

PC appeared to be a standard for business computers so decided todesign soundcard for PC

Design by Williams/Watts/Baker for Olivetti Computers, Italy PC1XT clone 1987 PC1 - 8088 4.77Mhz, color, mouse, Sound Card similar to

Commodore SFX - FM 8 channels DOS 3.2
http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/cbm-sfx-int-better.jpg


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1987 - Adlib, Sound Blaster &Microsoft

Adlib 1987- just FM Synthesis first high volume Soundcard Soundblaster 1988YM3812 FM andSampled Sound

Microsoft asked Yamaha to makes their FM chips available on the open market in1989 (first customer was Music Sales) so a standard could be enabled PCB shows Commodore FM board (1986) next to Adlib (1987/90)
http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/cbm-sfx-int-better.jpg


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Psion Series 5

Williams responsible for some audio design on Psion Series 5 Originally mono recording, Williams produced design for stereo Philips

stereo DAC (TDA1543?) for Psion in 1996

Psion had no compression software 16Mbyte memory

Williams Goal- To allow stereo music playback via headphones or asminimum hardware platform for future audio

Psion Management had no interest in Williams music playback Fraunhofer released MP3 compression, Rio Diamond Oct 1998 first MP3 player

Apple Iphone invented 2001 with staff from Philips Psion quits handheld computers market 2001 Some Psion staff work for Apple Corrections Aug 2008, Williams


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Where are they now?

Commodore SFX , Philips, Datel cardsbuy on Ebay 2004 Datel $150M/yr sales Xbox peripherals Soundcards all based on Yamaha FM Sound Chip No patents or IP protection on the original sound sampling algorithms or FM

soundcard implementations


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The End - Any Questions ?

More on http://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/soundcard.aspx
http://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/soundcard.aspxhttp://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/soundcard.aspx


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Thanks to

Richard Atkinson Alan Boothman

Colin Robinson (1926-1998) Trevor Taylor Chuck Thacker Richard Watts Electronic Organ Constructors Society

More info on http://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/

Or email Lyndsay Williams [email protected]
http://eocs.org.uk/http://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://research.microsoft.com/users/lyn/http://eocs.org.uk/

pc soundcard and digital audio history by lyndsay williams 1980 -1989

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