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From: pxd3563@ritcv.UUCP (Patrick Deupree)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Mountain music, alpha syntauri (sp?)
Message-ID: <704@ritcv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Oct-87 11:29:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: ritcv.704
Posted: Sun Oct 11 11:29:36 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Oct-87 22:08:08 EDT
References: <2466@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: pxd3563@ritcv.UUCP (Patrick Deupree)
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
Lines: 27
Keywords: apple, music
Xref: mnetor rec.music.synth:1629 comp.sys.apple:2865

I was working for a computer store back in 1980 or 1981 when the Alpha
Sentauri first came out.  Since I was the only person who knew what they
were doing in the production department, I was the one that assembled
and tested the thing when it came in (but this was before I really got
into music, so I didn't play with it as much as I could have).

I don't know that I would advise it though, since this is what it is.  It
comes with the Mountain Music card (which is a two card system with a
simple light pen attached).  And it comes with a keyboard (all it is is
an encoded 64 key keyboard with no velocity sensativity, aftertouch, etc),
and a ribbon cable that comes out of it and plugs into an interface that
goes in ones apple.  The system also comes with software for creating
and editing sounds (but unfortunatly this system was done in Lo-res 
graphics using colored blocks to diagram sounds instead of wave forms).
But the sequencing software is much better.  If I remember correctly it
was a hi-res editing system with 16 tracks of recording (although it
would be a really short song considering an apples memory).  And it came
with maybe 40 or 50 patches on disks.  The price tag was also in the
ballpark of $1400.

I'm not sure if they still exist or not, but in this day and age they are
a bit archaic.  With the invention of MIDI that kind of system is pretty
obsolete, and you could probably buy a halfway decent midi keyboard for
$300 (You could even buy a Casio, since you could get synth software for
the computer to overcome Casio's tinny sounds).  And you could buy a MIDI
interface for around $300 (give or take $100), and then the software could
run anywhere from $40 to $250, depending on how complex you want to get.