SID

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The MOS Technology SID is a sound-generating integrated circuit designed for Commodore computers, especially the Commodore 64. SID stands for Sound Interface Device.

The chip contains three independently controlled voices with oscillators capable of producing sawtooth, triangle, pulse, and noise waveforms. It also includes envelope generators, ring modulation, synchronisation, and an analogue multimode filter.

The original 6581 and later 8580 versions differ in filter response, noise, distortion, and electrical behaviour. Manufacturing variation gave individual chips slightly different sonic characteristics.

The SID became influential in computer music and electronic composition because programmers could manipulate its registers directly. Its sound remains associated with chiptune, demos, games, and modern hardware and software emulations.

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• Source / publisher: Wikipedia
• URL type: WWW
• Credits: Wikipedia
• URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_SID