Fourays is a tribute to AY-3-8910
The AY-3-8910 relatively simple synthesizer chip with big ambitions.
It was to be found in many arcade machines, home computers and game consoles throughout the 1980's.
Today, the only examples of these chips which can be found are those either meticulously preserved in retro computing collections, or those which are being salvaged from electronic waste.
Those being recovered from salvage are diminishing in number and many are faulty or completely lifeless. Fourays is a way to put the surviving examples into a new home in the form of musical instruments which would complement any collection of synthesizers.
Each chip can produce three independent voices, but why be content with just one chip? Using modern microcontrollers, it is possible to harness the power of many of these chips in harmony, and a good number of chips per instrument is four. Four AY's. Twelve voices, and four noise generators working together as your next MIDI instrument.
Where to get your Fourays
Due to the nature of rescuing examples of vintage technology, these are never going to be mass produced. We have a small stock of chips available which will produce an even smaller number of Fourays synthesizers.
Please direct all enquiries to doug.lon.dev.
The design and firmware is also fully open source and you can build your own.
Concept and Development
Fourays was born in 2024 and the early stages of discovery and design can be traced through these three blog posts: