3 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2021–2024score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Recommended in DX7 reverse-engineering threads as a look at the effort behind bit-accurate emulation.
An episode of Plogue's chipresearch series on emulating the Yamaha DX7 from the hardware up. It covers the sub CPU and main CPU, address map investigation, cartridges, firmware analysis and a skeleton MAME driver.
“a YouTube video about the reverse engineering process from David at Plogue” (HN, 2024)
Plogue, a Canadian software company, have recently released a (software) emulation of the DX-7 in excruciating detail. Here you can see part of the trouble they went through: [this video] . Suffice to say that they used a logic analyzer to discover gritty details that no other analysis of the DX-7 I know has ever paid attention of.
Plogue's effort emulating the DX7 with logic analyzer measurements
Maybe the closest free plugin, but it's not on the level of accuracy as Plogue's Chipsynth OPS7, which is bit-accurate. The author has an interesting video here, with more to come hopefully: [this video]
I would recommend Plogue's OPS7, they have put considerable amounts of time and effort into reverse engineering the original chips. The interface is a little clunky but it sounds fantastic. [link] Edit: a YouTube video about the reverse engineering process from David at Plogue: [this video]
Plogue developer explains reverse engineering the DX7 chips
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