[Coco] Games that use The SSC

[Nick Marentes]

On 13/10/2014 5:47 AM, S Klammer wrote:
> Agreed, back-in-the-day, better "builtin" sounds capabilities would have
> been preferable.  The first game I'd purchased for my Coco was very
> primitive Asteroids type of game which only had a "bzzzt" sound effect :)
>
> Any sounds created via the AY, the SID or the 6bit DAC, improved greatly
> over time as people began to better manage their capabilites.  IMO, for
> those within the Coco realm, the SSC never reached the "critical mass" to
> justify that attention.
>
> Shain
>

The SCC is certainly the better of the 2 cards as far as its use for 
sound in a game. It could create a complete note with ADSR (Attack Decay 
Sustain Release) with no CPU intervention. It also had a noise channel 
and the option for robotic speech.

The Orch90's advantage over the default CoCo 6-bit sound ADC is that it 
is 8-bits and contains 2 ADC's to create a left and right channel. It 
still occupies a lot of CPU time to actually generate the waveform... 
and therefore probably utilizes more CPU time if one was coding it for 
true stereo.

Anyone creating a game for the CoCo would be better utilizing the SCC 
than the Orch90 and this as we have seen has been the case judging by 
the Orch90 primary use for music.

Both cards required the user to purchase a multipac interface although 
it was possible to use the Orch90 and it's build in Music program. Both 
could be used on their own without a multipak if one was to save/load 
from tape... something many of us haven't done since the early 80's!

I have my multipak currently setup and that's what has led to this CoCo 
sound card evaluation.

I'm already starting to get sick of the look of this device taking up 
valuable deskspace and I use my CoCo in fear that I will bump it and fry 
something. I also find that I sometimes forget that turning off the CoCo 
doesn't turn off the multipak and all the devices connected. Two 
switches to remember to turn my system on and off... the multipac must 
be the first one on and the last one off.

I'll give it another day afterwhich it promptly gets packed up in its 
box not to be used for another 20 years.

Nick