120 Years of Electronic Music
The Synclavier
The Synclavier (1975)
The Prototype Synclavier (1975) was developed at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA, (Sydney Alonso, who developed the
hardware designs, Cameron Jones, who developed the software,
and Jon Appleton, musical advisor to the project) as a self contained digital synthesiser based on a network of integrated circuits and micro-processors. In 1976 the New England Digital Corporation was created to market the machine. The user was shielded from the software complexities by a comprehensive push-button keypad, later models had an added VDU, QWERTY keyboard and hard disk. A touch strip allowed continuous pitch control.
The original Synclavier development group 1975: Sydney Alonso (hardware designs)left, Cameron Jones(software) right, Jon Appleton (musical advisor) seated at keyboard.
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