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A quick break from the Olympics: is that SID?

Chuck Peddle, designer of the Commodore PET and its 6502 processor, still owes me a curry after an incautious bet. But I gather that the wizard chip maker has an Olympic credit to his name, this year.

"That," said a friend after the BBC Olympic credits rolled, "is the unmistakable sound of SID warbling."

SID isn't a singer: it's the SID6581 - a synth chip, which was made famous when Commodore put it into the Commodore 64 home computer. A million hackers immediately started pulling it apart, and it became a cult item, with, say fans, a distinctive sound.

Here's the expert summary:

The SID6581 is a very cool little soundchip, built like no other. Its original techniques have resulted in a very special sound with unique realtime control possibilities.

Housed in a 28-pin DIP-capsule it is a mixture of digital and analogue technology with phase accumulated oscillators and analogue multimode NMOS filter. It has inherited the character and individuality from the analogue world, sometimes appearing to have a life of its own.

SID6581 was a part of the Commodore 64 - the computer with the most active hacker community ever. This meant that thousand of hackers and musicians explored every little corner of the chip, trying to beat each other in doing the most advanced and interesting sounds. Over time hackers came up with many original ideas on how to squeeze even cooler sounds out of the chip.

What this means for the SidStation is that not only the SID chip is original in sound, but the way it is programmed is based on over 10 years of experience from the C64 hacker community. No other synth chip has had this chance.

You can listen to its output as a component of the SidStation.

But is it really the SID chip? Anybody who actually knows... please get in touch!