8-bit music and sound

The 8-bit IIs are quite underpowered in the sound department compared
to the IIgs. However, anyone who's played Dung Beetles or Sea Dragon
knows that some pretty sophisticated stuff is still possible. The
8-bit sound normally consists simply of an ability for programs to
make the speaker click. If a program toggles the speaker very fast,
tones are generated. And using other techniques beyond the scope of
this FAQ, you can even play digitized samples on the speaker, although
the quality isn't very good unless you can somehow hook up external
speakers. You can hear for yourself with Michael Mahon's Sound Editor
2.2, which is currently available from his web page at:
http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

There have also been a variety of sound expansion boards available for
the 8-bit IIs, but the only one to really catch on was the venerable
Mockingboard. The Mockingboard was available in several packages. The
Mockingboard "A" was the base card, which added 6-voice music and
sound synthesis to to any alotted II. The Mockingboard "B" was a
daughterboard that worked with the "A" and added speech synthesis
capabilities. The Mockingboard "C" was essentially an "A" and "B" in
one package. The later Mockingboard "D" had the same capabilities as
the "C", but attached to the Apple IIc via the serial port.

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Types of sound files found on the IIgs

Several types of sample files are used. Here are the most common.

NameExtensionFTypeDescription
---------------------------------------------------
Rawno std. BINContains only raw sample data. The auxtype
is normally the sample rate divided by 51.
(See section CA for more on why this is).
ACE.ACE$CDContains raw sample data compressed with ACE,
Apple's Tool029 sound compressor.
ASIFno std. $D8Contains sample data plus additional data.
Notable due to its use by SoundSmith.
AIFF.AIFF$D8Interchange format popular on the Macintosh.
Not used much on the IIgs.
HyperStudio no std. $D8Contains raw or ACE compressed data plus
additional information.
rSoundno std. $D8Resource fork contains one or more rSound and
rResName resources. Used by HyperCard
IIgs and the Sound CDev.

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