> Quite an incredible story the whole thing.
Even more with Chowning's background as a musician, not an engineer.
> Multiplying sounds just sounded too ridiculous
Is this really the "official" reason, or your interpretation?
Even more with Chowning's background as a musician, not an engineer.
> Multiplying sounds just sounded too ridiculous
Is this really the "official" reason, or your interpretation?
Stanford did reach out to the American synth manufacturers looking for a company to license the patent. If I recall correctly, the problem wasn't that they didn't get it, the problem was that they weren't interested in, or capable of, building digital synths^1. At that time manufacturing LSI chips for synthesisers was absolutely cutting edge, and Yamaha had taken a major gamble in developing their in-house semiconductor manufacturing capability. Because of that, Yamaha were pretty much the only synth company capable of doing it.
1: The prototypes for the first-generation Yamaha FM synths were built with discrete components, and were enormous. It's understandable that it wouldn't be economical unless you could manufacture your own LSI chips.
Didn't the Synclavier have FM and was on the market even before Yamaha? So I would assume that at least NED must have been interested and have the capabilities of implementing FM.
Check out how complex the design of the Synclavier is: http://www.studiorepair.com/gallery/misc/NED_Synclavier_II/ (and this is the more modern Synclavier II!) It's huge, and cost a fortune. I'd totally understand a company not wanting to manufacture and market it.