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Newtech  - Model 6 Music Board

This board was a simple answer to anybody that wanted their S-100 computer to synthesize music. It came out early in the S-100 board era and was probably the first such S-100 board.

Music Board

The board was clearly less than half height but had the necessary S-100 connectors (gold plated) and was quite well priced ($60) and popular.

The board enabled anyone with an S-100 bus computer to produce music and sound effects.  Applications include generating melodies, rhythms, sound effects, Morse code, touch-tone synthesis etv.  The Model 6 was fully assembled and tested.  Its features included selectable output port address decoding, a latched 6-bit digital-to-analog converter, audio amplifier, speaker, volume control, and RCA phono jack for convenient connection to your home audio system. 

The Model 6 Users Manual provides complete documentation and includes a BASIC Language program for writing musical scores and an 8080 Assembly Language routine for playing them.  Other software has been published which can easily be implemented on the Model 6.  For example, Hal Chamberlain's "Computer Bits" articles in the September and October 1976 issues of Popular Electronics contained programs for tone, white noise, and "weird sound" generation, as well as a musical frequency table and tables for touch-tone frequency generation.  Malcolm Wright's "Alphanumeric Music with Amplitude Control"  was another excellent resource for implementation of music on the Model 6 Music Board.

The detailed manual for this board can be obtained here.
Hal Chamberlains article can be obtained here.

 

Newtech S-100 Boards
Model 6 Music Board

 

This page was last modified on 10/25/2013