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PHASOR SOUND CARD MINI-MANUAL
or All About the Applied Engineering Phasor Apple ][ Sound Card!
Compiled and edited by Charles T. Turley
I've wanted to have a Phasor Apple ][ Sound Card for years, if for nothing
else, just to be able to check it out and see exactly what it can and
can't
do. Ever sense I saw it at an AppleFest show, at the Applied Engineering
booth display, I've been looking around for a Phasor sound card at
a really
reasonable price.
The Phasor is fairly rare and hard to fine today. As I recall, less
than a
thousand were sold. I was lucky to find a nearly new Phasor Apple ][
Sound
Card for $3 (US) in a local flea market just last weekend. The Phasor
hasn't
been commercially made and sold ever sense Applied Engineering went
out of
business.These days your best place to find one would be in Apple ][
computer swaps, used computer stores, bargain stores, thrift shops,
flea
markets, BBS', usergroups or ocassionally they might be offered for
sale or
trade in the newsgroup: comp.sys.apple2.marketplace.
Another possible source for the card, manual and/or software from Australia
is noted below.
Applied Engineering
Terry Cass
13 Sunlight Drive
Burleigh Waters 4220
Gold Coast Qld.
Phone 61 7 55 75 9099
Fax 61 7 55 78 8874
Terry was a former distributors of AE equipment in the SE Asia region,
and
now repairs AE equipment and cards, as well as continuing to sell stock
left
since AE went out of business.
Phasor is a MockingBoard compatible style sound card that was made and
sold
by Applied Engineering. Looking at the software that comes with the
Phasor
may be helpful to MB users. If you should be able to obtain one of
these
Phasor sound cards but, didn't get the manual and/or software with
it,
perhaps the following might be of help to you. The software consist
of four
5.25 disks and the information concerning them, their functionality
and
where to obtain them is listed with links below.
Software name: Phasor (AE sound card) utility disk
Computers: Apple IIe, Apple IIgs
Disk Operating System: ProDOS 8
Contents of Disks: Utilities for the Applied Engineering Phasor Sound Card.
Configuration & Test Utilities
Music Player
Speech Program
Songs and noises
Music Editor
Sound Builder
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/utility/sound/phasor1.dsk
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/utility/sound/phasor2.dsk
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/utility/sound/phasor3.dsk
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/utility/sound/phasor4.dsk
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
As noted above, the utilites are currently available on disk image files
from the
Asimov ftp archive site. They can be converted to Apple ][ 5.25 disks
for
use with the Phasor card in your Apple ][ by using the Apple ][ program
DSK2FILE (v4.3 or 5.5.). DSK2FILE is available from Ground and other
archives. (see File Utilities.)
The Phasor is an amazing and uniquely designed Apple ][/IIgs sound card.
It
works with the Apple IIgs but, WILL NOT function as a true Stereo card
with
any IIgs program that uses the actual Ensoniq DOC chip.
The Phasor provides twelve sound channels with a varity of wave-form
patterns and effects included, a lot like FM-synthesis. The Phasor
sound
card has four white noise generators and a unique one-voice synthesized
speech channel, expandable to 2 speech channels. The Phasor also features
it's own 4 watt amplifier that can drive stereo speakers (left &
right).
It's compatible with most older sound cards, like the Mockingboard,
ALF, SMS
and Echo+.
The four DIP switches control emulation modes and standard Apple ][
internal
speaker sound-level (only if you disconnect internal speaker and have
old
speaker toggling sent to Phasor). Switches #1 and #2 are for emulations.
Switches #3 and #4 control your old internal speaker sounds, provided
you
have the speaker disconnected and the pin located on motherboard connected
to Phasor sound card
You can set Low, Medium and High volume with three different DIP positions.
The DIP positions won't alter the Phasor music/sound however. To do
that,
you must turn those two pots you asked about. Each controls either
the left
or right stereo channel. Turning them clock-wise increases volume,
and you
probably don't want this too high up, or sound gets distorted! Put
both on
an equal setting, unless you want one channel louder/softer than the
other.
Phasor DIP switch emulation modes:
______________________________________________
Native Phasor mode: 1: closed, 2: closed
Mockingboard mode: 1: opened, 2: closed
Echo+ mode:
1: opened, 2: opened
The Phasor is more of a II+ and IIe sound, speech and stereo card. But,
can
be used with the IIgs, virtually bypassing the Ensoniq DOC in every
respect.
Actually it is a jazzed out styled Mockingboard clone stereo, speech,
sound
card, all in one card. It can function with it's programs as; music
player,
speech program, song and noise creation utility, Music Editor and special
effects sound Builder In the IIgs it's a real tight fit, but it does
fit. It
works in the IIgs just fine.Bbut there is little reason to install
it in one
beyond having the better sound built-in. IIgs specific stereo digitizers
and/or sound cards using the Ensoniq DOC are more impressive. However,
it's
possible to have and use both the Phasor and other Stereo digitizers
and/or
sound cards in the IIgs.
There are four sound chips (General Instrument AY-3-8913) on the Phasor
each capable of 3 voices and 1 white noise generator. So, totaled it
presents 12 voices plus 4 white noise channels. There's also a fifth
sound
chip that's speech synthesis specific, labeled (SSI263 AP) N8513, with
an
empty socket next to it, if you want to add another, if two voices
talking
at the same time are desired. It does clean stereo output and also
has a
four watt amplifier on the card. With the DIP switch settings you can
use
three modes: Native Phasor mode, Mockingboard emulation and Echo+
emulation.
The game Ultima V is supported by the Phasor sound card. As should be
most
Mockingboard specific games and all such Apple ][ sound related software.
However, some programs do search for either a specific ID byte or address
to
locate the presence of a Phasor card and use of it.
The Phasor sound card was sold new with the utilities listed earlier
on two
5.25 double sided disks.
General references and information derived from;
Deja News Archives: 1995 thru 1997
http://www.dejanews.com