Comments on: The Mockingboard Sings

By: The Apple II Gets a Music Keyboard | Apple II Adventures

The Apple II Gets a Music Keyboard | Apple II Adventures — Sun, 10 May 2009 05:41:31 +0000

[...] to sound. Inspired by the 8 bit Sound and Fury site (down, hopefully temporarily), I acquired a Mockingboard and started looking around for a more complex set-up that would include a music keyboard I could [...]

By: Improved Game Engine Framework and more… | Apple II Adventures

Improved Game Engine Framework and more… | Apple II Adventures — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:24:55 +0000

[...] some more soundsets for Michael J Mahon’s Real Time Synthesizer b) make a ‘play the Mockingboard with your Apple II keyboard’ Applesoft program that’s hopefully superior to the [...]

By: JJ Sonick

JJ Sonick — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:15:48 +0000

Oh yeah, all I meant is that there are independent software titles that support the Mockingboard (and some big titles of the day), whereas other Apple II sound cards seem to have the software that comes with them and nothing else (see the 8-bit sound and fury site: http://8bitsoundandfury.ld8.org/hardware.html ). I’m only taking about Apple II land here.

I was aware of the Mockingboard back then, and wished I had one when I was playing Ultima IV in my youth (there the setting was on the option screen, taunting me). Electronic Arts’ Music Construction Set was a big deal at the time, too. I think it’ll be fun when I get around to messing with that program. This blog is partially about re-examining fun nostalgic things of the past, but I also want to explore things with the Apple II I never got a chance to back then – like making new music with a Mockingboard.

For me, the fact the 8-bit Apple II’s are not known for their sound makes it that much more intriguing to hear and generate interesting sound and music with them.

By: jeff

jeff — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:32:32 +0000

JJ- thanks for the linky to the Mockingboard list. Good info there.

The list confirms my hunch though, that “King of the 8-bit Apple soundcards” is like “King of Dubuque, Iowa” (No offense to Dubuquers… I just needed a sufficiently small city that everybody has heard of, so in fact, it is flattering…) On the list are the Ultima titles, Skyfox, One on One, Silent Service, and a bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of before. Not an impressive list. (IMHO, of course…)

In other words, yeah, Mockingboard was big, but, overall, not that big. In all of my Apple II travels back in the day, I never knew anybody who had a Mockingboard. Anybody who was even remotely interested in computer audio in the 1980s was in Atari- or Commodore-land.

Anyways… I don’t mean to be a downer here… it’s cool that you’ve got the Mockingclone working… it’s just that, for me, Apple II nostalgia has not much to do with sound…

(…unless you want to talk about Electric Duet…)

By: JJ Sonick

JJ Sonick — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:57:39 +0000

Yeah, I’ll experiment with going straight into a audio device later this week, and post an improved stereo recording if I’m successful with it.

The Mockingboard seemed to achieve ‘King of the 8-bit Apple soundcards’ in its day, so there were a fair number of games that supported it. Here’s a list from A2Wiki (includes music apps as well):
http://apple2.info/wiki/index.php?title=Mockingboard#Mockingboard_enhanced_titles

Of those, I will be trying the enhanced audio on Skyfox, Adventure Construction Set, Ultima V, and Music Construction Set for sure.

By: jeff

jeff — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:28:53 +0000

Cool that people are still making Apple II hardware.

Surely you can do better than the mike-to-speaker technique of recording… can’t you take the output from the Mockingboard straight into your recording device? That way we can get the stereo FX!!

I didn’t realize there were mainstream games that supported extra sound hardware on the Apple IIs. Besides Ultima IV, were (are!) there any others?