A.L.F. Products MC16 - Apple II Music Synthesizer - Bolero
Channel: VMM
Date: 2023-04-23

This is a 9 voice stereo rendition of Ravel's Bolero played on an Apple //e with three ALF MC16 music cards.
One card is "positioned" in the center, one card is to the left and one card is to the right. Each card has 3 individual voices created by a 8253 programmable interval timer (PIT) and three individual PMI companding DAC.
The ALF MC16 was first released in 1978/79 (10 years before the SoundBlaster) and is the first music card for a personal-/micro-computer. In that time no computer controllable music chip was available and the MC16 was built from off-the-shelve components. In 1981 Texas instruments released the SN76189, a synthesizer on a chip, based on the ALF MC16. It featured an additional noise channel but less accurate volume- and frequency-control.