Apple IIe (Early) and The Yam Soundbuster: 8BitBites
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.ค. 2024
- #apple2 #soundcard #8bit I recently purchased a very early Apple IIe. In fact, apart from prototypes, it's the earliest serial number machine I've ever seen, 1320! And as a bonus, it came with what seems to be a very rare Apple II sound card - the Yam Soundbuster! This video covers the machine and the card and takes a look through the Soundbuster's custom software.
0:00 - Intro
0:20 - The Yam
1:47 - A Very Early Apple IIe
4:45 - Soundbuster Test Drive
5:54 - I Have No Talent
8:03 - More Cowbell
9:55 - The IIe Has No Talent Either
10:59 - Sequences
14:09 - Risky Business
15:00 - Champagne + Apple IIe = Bad
15:32 - Surfing the Waves
16:37 - Opening up an Envelope
18:36 - It's pretty BASIC
19:48 - I Still Have No Talent - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I'm not sure how much you realize what a rare find this is. This confirms 1. that the board really did exist (there was a question at one point) and 2. that it was indeed a wavetable board. You need to back that software up and get it mirrored online somewhere.
I kind of had a feeling based on how little info I could find on it, but didn't realize it was in the realm of the somewhat mythical! Thanks for filling me in on that!. Glad I could provide a glimpse of what it does. I am *definitely* going to image the disks and archive them asap - I just have the rig I use with ADTPro down for repairs. I'll post a link to it here too.
@@TechTimeTraveller Did you ever get it backed up?
@@TechTimeTraveller I second if you ever backed up the software and if so, where did you post the files? Thanks in advance!
Moon River is the song I believe.
Yes now that you've said it, I'm certain that's what it is! Thank you!
Breakfast at Tiffany's starring Audrey Hepburn.
It would be cool to get some high quality image scans of the front and back of that card so it can be recreated :)
Agreed, getting some high resolution scans of the Yam SoundBuster card would be awesome!
As you noted while showing the closeup of the board there is remarkably little on that thing; outside of the normal digital glue there are some amplifiers, an CMOS analog switch, and a Motorola MC6840 programmable timer. My ignorant guess is the timer chip is the "heartbeat" for pacing the digital/analog conversion, but it would be interesting to know how much "acceleration" the hardware actually provides. (There were sound dinguses like the Orchestra 85/90 for TRS-80s and similar things that stuck on the PET's user port that were little more than resistor ladder DACs and were driven entirely by software, but this seems like it's at least a little more sophisticated than that. Does it do DMA straight to memory?)
Pretty slick... uses a Ferranti ZN428 Digital to Analog converter to play back and ZN427 Analog to Digital converter to record. The noise you're hearing when recording is most likely trash from the power supply needing recapping.
Yeah I need to drill out the rivets and recap it, especially before the RIFA gives way and smokes out my house (again).
Dang that software is pretty indeapth! I have the original USA VHS release of Electronic Dreams and the soundtrack on CD and Cassette! :)
i have it on an unopened betamax.
Now that I finished watching the video and you did a close up of that card...I think I have one somewhere! I remember saying to my self "YAM card...hmm" It was either the Apple or PC version but I am trying to find it. Or the other case could be that I saw it at one of the many PC recycling plants I visit and it was in a pile of stuff 🤔
If you ever come across a manual that would be incredible. I'd love to know how or if they documented it. I will be making the software available in the next day or so.
Big thumbs up for this video and the whole channel, love your work! I‘m sometimes making music with the Apple IIe on my channel and am generally a retro nerd so all of this is right up my alley ❤️
Many thanks! Glad you enjoyed!
Thanks for making this video :-)
Wow. I didn't expect that card being sample based.
The Sound buster ad you found says PC/XT/AT on it, and is a different card!
Fun! Thx 😃
Wow, sounds much better than I expected. I’ve never in my life heard of the Soundbuster so it was a pleasant surprise that it didn’t sound like complete rubbish. I love weird obscure hardware like this, any chance it was sold in the USA? I fiddle around with music production and mixing and using one of these in a song would be quite the story.
Apparently it was very low volume. Per the previous commenter it had been debated whether it existed at all. I am working to document it and the software so that hopefully someone can reproduce it.
Tech Time Traveller Thank you for your efforts to try and preserve this little piece of history then!!
Hell, I'd used it and still not heard of it!
Well the C64 was a bargain I guess, basically had graphics and sound (GS) built-in from the start ~1982!
I own an early Apple IIe like yours (white keys, hand written date code, etc), however my board is part number 820-0064-B (not A) also with a Copyright of 1982, so I wonder what's up with that since the rev B you showed was Copyright 1984. Any thoughts?
well they had two A revisions too so why not b. I think they count the later board as a different board/part number/design.
Explore the space with cowbell.. I see what you did here!
Btw Christopher Walken hates this skit after the years.
Could it not play chords or more than two voices?
It's hard for me to consider an Apple //e as an "early" model. Maybe early for a //e, but a very late Apple //.
I didn't care for the limited graphics on the Apple // or the way all those ribbon cables trailed out of the back of the early models. I thought it gave the impression of a "kit" computer.
I went for the Atari 800 for the superior built-in sound and video graphics.
Yes I just meant early in terms of IIe production. The earliest IIes did differ from the later ones (keyboard, graphics etc). It's something of interest mainly to hard core collectors. And no, I was never blown away by the IIs graphics.. they were neat for 1977 compared to what came before it, but the machine was antiquated by 1982 and Apple was massively overcharging to fund other ventures. Only people I knew that had them were teachers or other professionals.