The Mockingboard (a pun on "

Mockingbird Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds from the family Mimidae. They are best known for the habit of some species mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of insects and amphibians, often loudly and in rapid succession. ...

") is a

sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...

for the

Apple II series The Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ] ''" and rendered on later models as "Apple //") is a family of home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primaril ...

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...

s built by Sweet Micro Systems, which improve on the Apple II's limited sound capabilities. In 1981, Sweet Micro Systems began designing products not only for creating music, but speech and general sound effects as well, culminating in the release of the Mockingboard in 1983. The Mockingboard's hardware allowed programmers to create complex, high-quality sound without need for constant CPU attention. The Mockingboard could be connected to the Apple's built-in speaker or to external

speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...

s. However, as the quality of the built-in speaker was not high, the instruction manual recommended obtaining external speakers. The Mockingboard was available in various models for either the slot-based

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

Apple II Plus The Apple II Plus (stylized as Apple ] or apple plus) is the second model of the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. It was sold from June 1979 to December 1982. Approximately 380,000 II Pluses were sold during its ...

Apple IIe The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The ''e'' in the name stands for ''enhanced'', referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in ...

systems or in one special model for the

Apple IIc The Apple IIc, the fourth model in the Apple II series of personal computers, is Apple Computer's first endeavor to produce a portable computer. The result was a notebook-sized version of the Apple II that could be transported from place to ...

. Sound was generated through one or more AY-3-8910 or compatible sound chips, with one chip offering three square-wave synthesis channels. The boards could also be equipped with an optional speech chip (a

Votrax Votrax International, Inc. (originally the Vocal division of Federal Screw Works), or just Votrax, was a speech synthesis company located in the Detroit, Michigan area from 1971 to 1996. It began as a division of Federal Screw Works from 1971 to 19 ...

SC-01 or compatible chips such as the Arctic-02, SSI 263P, SSI 263AP or 78A263A-P). Some software products supported more than one Mockingboard. ''

Ultima V ''Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny'' is the fifth entry in the role-playing video game series '' Ultima'' released in March 1988. It is the second in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy. The game's story takes a darker turn from its predecessor ''Ulti ...

'' supported two boards, for a total of 12 voices, of which it used eight. Most other programs supported at most one board with six voices.

Applied Engineering Applied Engineering, headquartered in Carrollton, TX, was a leading third-party hardware vendor for the Apple II series of computers from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s. History {{original research, section, date=September 2018 In its da ...

Phasor In physics and engineering, a phasor (a portmanteau of phase vector) is a complex number representing a sinusoidal function whose amplitude (''A''), angular frequency (''ω''), and initial phase (''θ'') are time-invariant. It is related to ...

was compatible with the Mockingboard. It had 4 sound chips and thus provided 12 audio channels. Few programs supported using it for more than six voices, however. An

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

-compatible version was developed, but was only distributed with

Bank Street Music Writer Bank Street Music Writer is an application for composing and playing music for the Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, Commodore 64 and IBM PC. It was written by Glen Clancy

Models

Early models

* Sound I: one AY-3-8910 chip for three audio channels * Speech I: one SC-01 chip * Sound II: two AY-3-8910 chips for six audio channels * Sound/Speech I: one AY-3-8910 and one SC-01

Later models

* Mockingboard A: two AY-3-8913 chips for six audio channels and two open sockets for SSI-263 speech chips * Mockingboard B: SSI-263 speech chip upgrade for Mockingboard A * Mockingboard C: two AY-3-8913 and one SSI-263 (essentially a Mockingboard A with the upgrade pre-installed, only one speech chip allowed) * Mockingboard D: for Apple IIc only, not software compatible with the other Mockingboards, two AY-3-8913 and one SSI-263 * Mockingboard M: Bundled with Mindscape's

Bank Street Music Writer Bank Street Music Writer is an application for composing and playing music for the Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, Commodore 64 and IBM PC. It was written by Glen Clancy CPU socket In computer hardware, a CPU socket or CPU slot contains one or more mechanical components providing mechanical and electrical connections between a microprocessor and a printed circuit board (PCB). This allows for placing and replacing the cen ...

. Used two AY-3-8912 and CPLD for IO Bus interface. Developed by Ian Kim in Korea. * Mustalgame Card: Mockingboard clone from Capital Computer Co (Hong Kong) with two AY-3-891x chips. Integrated Software Automatic Mouth (S.A.M.) for speech synthesis. Amplifies Apple II speaker sound without need for interconnecting cable.

Other compatible cards

* Mega Audio: emulates 2 x Mockingboard cards without voice support, 1 x ALF Music card, 4 x S.A.M.-cards (4 x DAC). Developed by A2Heaven. *

Phasor (sound synthesizer) Phasor is a stereo music, sound and speech synthesizer created by Applied Engineering for the Apple II family of computers. Consisting of a sound card and a set of related software, the Phasor system was designed to be compatible with most softwa ...

: emulates 2 × Mockingboard cards with optional voice support, 1 x ALF Music Card. Developed by Applied Engineering. * SD Music card: First FM sound card for Apple II, Used a

YM2413 The YM2413, a.k.a. OPLL, is a cost-reduced FM synthesis sound chip manufactured by Yamaha Corporation and based on their YM3812 (OPL2). To make the chip cheaper to manufacture, many of the internal registers were removed. The result of this is th ...

and ATmega128 to emulate Mockingboard A/C without voice support. It provide Maximum nine voices and provide direct register control for YM2413. Developed by Ian Kim in Korea. * SD Music Deluxe ( OPL3): OPL3(YMF262) Mockingboard I/II/A/C emulated soundcard, Stereo sound and user defined instruments voice channels, Direct control for RAW data. VGM player supported. Developed by Ian Kim in Korea. *Mockingboard v2.2 from ReActiveMicro: The Mockingboard is a 6 voice sound card for the Apple II/II''plus'', IIe, IIGS family of computers. Developed by ReActiveMicro. *Echo+: emulates 1 x Mockingboard card, two AY-3-8913 for six channels, speech is provided by a

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

TMS5220NL Speech Synthesizer, compatibility with SC-01 or SSI-263 unknown.

References

External links