From John E Blacet Sent Sun, Nov 9th 1997, 17:04
It looks like the long absent Blacet Dark Star will be making another swing through our local planetary system! For those who don't remember it's last fly-by, this is a modular sound generator based on the classic TI 76477 sound chip and featured variable clocked noise, a noise filter, a VCO, PWM LFO, attack and decay. It was a pretty cool, compact solution for generating very interesting noise based events. When the last lonely (partless) PCB left the stockroom a few weeks ago, I dragged out the breadboard and started fiddlin'. My conclusion was that this thing was too good to let die. I added a few improvements such as voltage control of the noise clock, noise filter, VCO and PWM LFO. The range of the controls has also been extended. Some very nice pots and knobs were designed in. It looks like this will be a 3" x 5.25" module fitting the FracRak system (also size used by Doepfer). (If anyone is interested in other packaging, I would certainly like to hear the details, such as size, clear area and mounting hole location, size.) The downside in all this is the scarcity of certain key components. This will result in the Dark Star's appearance in the local system being very brief. In a week or so I will have info on my web page on ordering details and will be accepting deposits for early January delivery. Whooossssshhh----(who was that guy?) >:>#