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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!spar!turtlevax!weitek!mahar
From: mahar@weitek.UUCP (mahar)
Newsgroups: net.music.synth,net.games.video
Subject: Re: Marble Madness & FM Music Synthesis
Message-ID: <271@weitek.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 12:32:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: weitek.271
Posted: Thu Sep 19 12:32:06 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 11:47:43 EDT
References: <2614@ihnss.UUCP> <267@weitek.UUCP> <590@sftig.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 19
Xref: linus net.music.synth:506 net.games.video:470
Summary: Yea, but

In article <590@sftig.UUCP>, dr_d@sftig.UUCP (D.Donahue) writes:
> 
> > >  (2) Someone posted a rumor that the MM arcade game uses the
> > >      Amiga's sound chip set.  If so, does that imply that Amiga
> > >      supports digital FM synthesis?  Wow!  Actually, an LSI
> > >      FM chip should be pretty easy to build.
> > Your right. FM chips are not that hard to build. However, Yamaha
> > has the basic patent on FM sound generation. Atari's lawyers
> > didn't want to fight it so they just bought the chips from Yamaha.
> 	I'm not certain what it is that you are refering to as far as Yamahas
> ownership with respect to FM sound generation. As far FM patenting is concerned,
> John Chowing of Stanfords CCRMA is the one who, perhaps didn't conceive of the
> idea, actively purued and developed the process of Frequency Modulated Sound
> Generation. The same John Chowning, not Yamaha, is the one who holds any 
> patents having to do with FM Sound Generation.
Doug,
	You are right about Chowning. Yamaha bought exclusive rights to his
patents. If you or I wanted to do FM we would still have to talk to Yamaha.
			Mike Mahar