Synthesizing calculator
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05-05-2016, 08:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-13-2016 07:09 PM by Joseph_21sv.)
Post: #3
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RE: Synthesizing calculator
(05-02-2016 01:13 AM)Katie Wasserman Wrote: I think that the VL-1 was more of a toy keyboard that allowed for simple recording and ADSR (attach, decay sustain, release) sound customization. It was not polyphonic and it sounded pretty terrible. The calculator was just a fun add-on; there was no integration between the calculator functions and the music functions other than using the single memory register for the custom ADSR value. The VL-1 had actually already been used seriously several times in the 1980s in spite of being so limited. In fact, that is why it became so notable in the history of electronic music. And yet nobody at the time seemed to have believed there could be business in developing the idea of the device into something more serious on the calculator side or the synthesizer, in particular TI and Casio themselves, who were simultaneously actively making calculators and sound synthesis chips at the time (Casio still is although the advanced models in their current line of calculators are notoriously not very well functionally integrated), and Sharp (now soon to be taken over), Canon and HP, who were exclusively making calculators at the time might have at least considered seeking to license a preexisting sound chip design if they were not to embark on developing one from scratch (Sharp eventually did the latter by way of customizing the Z80 CPU for Nintendo to use in their Game Boy line [now discontinued], but they never used it in anything of their own or licensed it to be used in anything else of a second party's). All five also already had global reach at the time of the VL-1 and so were credibly positioned to establish business in a device which would be a functional upgrade of it. And more importantly that device was very probably going to sell decently enough if just any one of them would have manufactured it. So why did none of them ultimately go forward on developing the hardware for it? Were they just not too confident it could be decently big business? |
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Messages In This Thread |
Synthesizing calculator - Joseph_21sv - 05-01-2016, 05:51 PM
RE: Synthesizing calculator - Katie Wasserman - 05-02-2016, 01:13 AM
RE: Synthesizing calculator - Joseph_21sv - 05-05-2016 08:53 PM
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