Even for a sound chip, analog was unusual. a lot of the arcade games from that era and for another 10-15 years would often dedicate whole CPUs, such as Z80s and 6809s to sound. e.g. run some classics in MAME and it displays the sound chip(s) used in each game. Some of them have as many or more cycles used than the game CPU :)
the tradeoff this chip made was fewer transistors and cost in exchange for not being very music, or able to be tuned well. it really was more a sound effect chip then a music chip.
This has me thinking of the era when the LaserWriter printer had a significantly faster CPU and more RAM than the Macs it was paired with. The complexities of interfacing with the analog world...
the tradeoff this chip made was fewer transistors and cost in exchange for not being very music, or able to be tuned well. it really was more a sound effect chip then a music chip.