Spaceware on the PDP-1

flickr by the earthling. The caption reads, "Spacewar was the first video game... ever. Yes, I played it on this restored PDP-1." I wonder if it produced sound and if so, how. If you have any idea if the PDP-1 could produce sound, please comment.

via unrest.

Update via solipsisnation in the comments:
"Well, PDP systems were digital, and their CPUs were waaaay too slow for anything resembling real-time sound.

That said, the PDP series was used for electronic music composition, and while I was going to mention Paul Lansky's "Mild und Leise" (AKA "the neat FM-y noises from Radiohead's 'Idiotique'"), that appears to have been made on an IBM: link

Here's a timeline that mentions PDP-series computers, though: link

Of interest are these paragraphs:

"In 1968, Barry Vercoe working at Princeton developed a very fast version of MUSIC IV B, entitled MUSIC 360 [9] [12] for the new generation IBM 360 mainframes. In 1973 at MIT, Vercoe developed a compact version of MUSIC called MUSIC 11 [3]. It was written in PDP-11 assembler code for the PDP-11 computer. This was the first digital music synthesis program for mini-computers with a keyboard and teletypewriter VDU (Visual Display Unit).

John Chowning and James Moorer at the University of Stanford, California wrote another version of MUSIC called MUSIC 10 [13] for the PDP-10 in 1975. Further improvements to MUSIC 10 were implemented both at Stanford and IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) in Paris. The IRCAM implementation allowed input of short external samples through the use of Analog-to-Digital (A/D) converters. The input could be analyzed digitally providing data for modifications and re-synthesis, in combination with internally generated sounds."

So, the PDP-1 was probably too primitive, but systems with a similar architecture could be used to synthesize audio in a very slow and painstaking way-- no realtime sound, for sure. These were the days before microprocessors, and even KHz CPUs were still in the future. "

Acid ohne Roland's TB303

Title link takes you to a list of TB acid tracks featuring various synths inlcuing:

Propellerheads Rebirth
Yamaha AN1X
Kawai K5000S
Waldorf Microwave XT
Korg Z1
Korg Poly 61
Yamaha FX900
Hohner HS-1
Access Virus C
3x Creakbox Beta
MAM Freebass FB383
Audiorealism Bassline V1.5
Roland JD800

Each track lists what synths were used. These are really good demos.

EMS Clones on Sequencer.de

Sequencer.de has a post up with different EMS Clones. There's more out their than I thought. Some of the sites have mp3s. Title link takes you there.

Doepfer and TR-606 - New Flickr Shot

flickr by unyo303.

MOOG 2005 New Years Eve - New Flickr Shots

flickr by Johnny V.

Ken Elhardt's Studio

With all this talk about Elhardt possibly behing behind the SMS 2000, I thought I'd put up a post on his studio.

Seekers SMS 2000 Resurfaces

Update: Pevious posts in case you missed them:
1 (original post with convention shots)
2 (the SMS2000 in plastic)
3 (the first prototype) : )

Click here for a post on the SOS forum by SteveCooperman who claims he has played with one - shots saved below for posterity.

Thanks goes to Dennis Verschoor for sending this one in.

The following is the full post:

"About a week ago I received a call from a friend who likes to hop from shop to shop looking for vintage gear or interesting new items. He was standing infront of a synthesiser and describing it to me on his mobile. His description intrigued me to such an extent, I decided to take the hour plus drive to see it for myself. It happened that the synthesiser just arrived that morning and wasn't there more than three hours. After playing around with it a tad, I knew I had to have it. The synthesiser is a programmable monophonic analogue by Seekers called the SMS2000. I had never heard of the manufacturer but the bloke at the shop told me they made an analogue vocoder too.

What is it? The SMS2000 reminds me quite a bit of the Minimoog Voyager. It has an adjustable knob interface like the Minimoog, a 3 1/2 octave keyboard, a crazy set of performance levers, and even a joystick. See pictures at the URLs provided below. But it seems as if Seekers wanted to one-up the Moog Voyager in almost every respect. One more oscillator, one more LFO, one more ADSR, ring modulator, fixed filter bank - like a Moog MuRF right in there but with frequencies set to those of a typical equaliser, full dual filters, and something called an XCU is also included. That's an expansion control unit which is a breakout box similar to the Moog VX-351. I don't own a modular, but it will come in handy patching into my MS-20.

I had been on the fence for some time as to whether I wanted to put out the money for a Voyager. But there always seemed to be too many little niggles and limitations with it. The Seekers seems to have overcome many of those. For example the Voyager can't invert control voltages, the Seekers can. The Voyager forces you into using the display for programming, the Seekers puts every function out there with its own knob or button. The display is only used for patch storage and retrieval, and MIDI related functions. The Seekers has a joystick on the knob interface where vertical controls one filter and the horizontal the other filter. At first I thought it a bit daft that it couldn't be patched to control all kinds of other things too, but when I considered that it seemed like an extra bonus thrown in there, and most synthesisers don't have one at all, then it seemed pretty cool.

The manual is adequate but full of typos and poor translations. Seekers is a Japanese company. There is no mention as to whether the filters are imitations of well known filters or not. Only that the 24dB/octave is a ladder filter and the 12dB/octave is a state variable. But both filters contain lowpass and highpass which can also be combined for bandpass. Both can self resonate.

I've only had the SMS for a week, and with a busy work schedule I haven't had much time to delve deeply into it yet. I'll write a more extensive review after I spend more time with it. The owner of the shop seemed to indicate these are trickling off the assembly line and it could be a couple of months before another shows up. I would expect major players like Turnkey to carry them when they begin to proliferate.

Here are some photos of the SMS. My flat is getting a bit too crowded with audio gear, so it's only a temporary setup. The MS-20 went to the floor to make room for my SMS. My Micromoog will probably be up for sale soon. I can't keep it all."

CLICK FOR MORE »

The Alison Project

The Alison Project

Skeletons Dig Synths

via this HC thread.

Aussie Babies Love the Jupiter 8

This one including title in via Ross. The title, of course, is in reference to this post. I thought the following blurb from Ross was pretty funny. Makes me wonder if I should have named my daughter Cynthia. : )

"It must be an Australian thing with babies and Jupiter 8s

My son OSCar( yes named after the synth, it was that or Roland
Oberheim), loves playing the Jupiter so much so he calls it Daddy, and
he doesnt call me daddy???:-)"

Thanks Ross. BTW, I thought of Roland Oberheim as well, but my wife killed that one pretty quickly, and we had a daughter, so...