Hypothetical 6502-based synthesizer calculator?

[Joseph_21sv]

(01-31-2016 04:47 AM)Garth Wilson Wrote:  I don't know what you'd want a musical synthesizer calculator for, but modern 65c02's are powerful enough to do the job without the SID, just by sampling the waveforms based on timer interrupts, and feeding the samples from tables, polyphonically. I've run about 125,000 interrupts per second on a 65c02, and the fastest 65c02's are about 40 times as fast as mine (200MHz, about 50MIPS, and an interrupt sequence that's only 35ns long). CD sampling rate for high-quality audio is only 44,100 samples per second.

I do emphasize the "c" in 65c02 though, for "CMOS." It has a ton of benefits over MOS Technology's original 6502, which I outline at http://wilsonminesco.com/NMOS-CMOSdif/ .

HP have actually been making one or more models of graphing calculator with a fully-programmable beeper continuously since 1988. It would only be logical for them now to put a polyphonic synthesizer chip, such as the 65c02, in a calculator and have a tracker for it pre-programmed into firmware. However, a sound chip intended as non-sampling, such as the SID, makes more historical sense than a sampler chip when one is building on an 8-bit processor such as the 65c02. Moreover, it is sort of an excuse, if one must be needed, for a non-graphical calculator to have more than 32K of user memory, because most of the 8-bit home computer models with polyphonic synthesis had that much. As to why someone might want to buy a polyphonic synthesizer calculator, outside of nerdiness, they could simply be squeamish about sinking the money (and space) into a full-sized general MIDI keyboard or a keyboard purist who cringes at most of the samples that might come out of general MIDI keyboards or realize what it would take for a calculator to be seen in stock at a Guitar Center.