General Instrument AY-3-8910...
These were carried in Radio Shack when I was a kid and made me lose my mind a little bit. ....
That GI chip was the most sophisticated sound chip that I could get my hands on..better than the available TI chips. The GI chip literally proved to me that I did not understand music no matter how much I loved to listen
....didn't even bother trying with the SID chip.
I think that the 8912 was what was carried at RS and it is listed here as the most widely used variant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Instrument_AY-3-8910#VariantsLater, I tried to convince Yamaha to send me samples of their 'new' sound chips, but they would have none of that - despite my "creative explanations", they, apparently, concluded that a guy from a medical research institute did not need samples of our sound chips.
Here is my All-Shack project from 1987/8 with on-board amplifier (LM386) and ready to run from a PC parallel port - I was quite happy with it at the time. I even dug up a demo program that I wrote in Borland's Turbo C. BTW, 32-33 years later, I still can't cut a circle for a plastic case
void c_chord()
{
reset();
load(7,248); /* enable tones on A,B,C */
load(12,80); /* envelop coarse [about 0.4 Hz] */
load(8,16); /* amplitude of a on envelope control */
load(1,1); /* C-4 MSB */
load(0,172); /* C-4 LSB on a */
load(13,0); /* envelope shape/cycle[long delay] */
timer(250); /* wait */
load(3,1); /* E-4 MSB */
load(2,83); /* E-4 LSB on b */
load(9,16); /* amplitude of b on envelope control */
load(13,0); /* envelope shape/cycle[long delay] */
timer(250); /* wait */
load(5,1); /* G-4 MSB */
load(4,29); /* G-4 LSB on c */
load(10,16); /* amplitude of c on envelope control */
load(13,0); /* trigger */
timer(1700); /* wait */
load(13,0); /* trigger all three */
timer(1850); /* wait */
reset();
}
Good times, thanks