Wednesday, 28 August 2019

audio - Where have the 8 bit sound chips gone?


I know it's 2014 and you can get an MP3 player and 40 bazillion terabytes on a microscopic chip. But I want to build a 6502 based retro computer and, in a perfect world, I would order up about 200 SID chips.


Anyway, are there any mass produced audio chips these days that closely resemble the remarkable chiptunes of the 80's?


I've ordered four AY-3-8912's off eBay but I'd like to find something similar but still in production.


Oh, gutting vintage computers is out of the question. I restore them. Not gut them. ;-)


EDIT



I wanted to post a followup to those who are curious. Finding old vintage audio chips on eBay isn't too difficult. But, obviously, not for any kind of mass production.


Anyway, I have found an alternative using the Propeller chip from Parallax. Using that microcontroller, you can emulate with high accuracy the SID, AY-3-8910 and SN76489 chips. Each emulated chip resides in one cog (from 8).


http://obex.parallax.com/object/532


http://obex.parallax.com/object/548


http://obex.parallax.com/object/153



Answer




Where have the 8 bit sound chips gone?



No longer in production due to lack of demand.




in a perfect world, I would order up about 200 SID chips.



Too late



are there any mass produced audio chips these days that closely resemble the remarkable chiptunes of the 80's?



There's the things used in musical greetings cards and things like this - but thats resemble in the way an iPod resembles a Walkman. It fills a vaguely similar niche but uses very different technology.


There's also SwinSID




SwinSID is a hardware replacement for legendary SID sound chip



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