My Paia 4700 Module Reboot
First Posted May 3, 2025
I did not have a 4700 synth for very long, due to
the fact that space was becoming a major problem. This was back
in the late `70's. Much more recently, about 20 years ago, I was
looking on Ebay as there were several for sale then, but I thought that
paying $300 for one was just plain silly. By the time I decided
it wasn't silly, prices were up over $1000, which I once again decided
was just plain silly. So, I decide to redesign the modules, and
for the most part, not cloning the originals, and in some cases in a
way that I am sure John Simonton (Mr. Paia) must be spinninh in
his grave. A good example is the way the 4720 is
implemented. Rather than generating a Sawtooth wave at the core
of the VCO, I implemented a Triangle oscillator core instead.
Makes it a lot easier to reshape the waveform. Another example,
the 8700 controller is going to be implemented with a 65816 cpu rather
than the original 6503 (6502 variant). Also, it will have a built
in debugging system, MIDI, 64K Ram, boot loader and other features.
4720 VCO
4730 VCF
4740 ADSR
4771 Power Supply (sort of at least)
4780 12 Step Sequencer
8780 Equal Tempered DAC interface
8781 Quad Sample and hold (QUASH)
8700 Controller/Computer