Sound chips that shaped video games

Sound is present since videogames are such. From little beeps to the complex, positional digital audio system nowadays. Sound effects and music in the digital entertainment have come a long way, and so the necessary hardware has.

Among the electronic circuits that have made possible the sound aspect of the digital world there are really notable ones. Because the melodies they have been written for, the impact in the gaming (or general) culture, its capacities or simply because the leap they meant. As the dumb lists enthusiast I am, here is a list of some which, in my judgement, are the most interesting and deserve to be remembered.

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State of the Art: mémoires

At this stage is needless to say that Amiga is one of the most loved architectures by its fans, or that its multimedia capabilities made its demoscene one of the most important. One of the most long-remembered productions is, of course, State of the Art, by the group Spaceballs, from 1992.

Technology behind this demo is not groundbreaking. It is true that the use of rotoscope made it very interesting, but for the rest it could go unnoticed. It was however very bold regarding one thing: it was one of the first demos that used mainstream techno themes. For first time you could show it to a person not from demoscene circles (those nerds with their computers!) and exclaim: “That’s dope, dude!”

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