[sdiy] When did the Buchla 259 come out?

[mark verbos]

It came out after the 208 (Music Easel). However, you should note that 
the 208 schematic that is up on Magnus' page is not the original. I have 
seen the insides of a couple 208's and they both had a principle 
oscillator that was based on Vactrols, if you can believe that! The FM 
range is actually limited by the speed of the Vactrols. The Timbre 
section was totally unique as well, using some ancient logic chips and a 
DG200 switch chip. It's not too hard to see that Magnus' schems are 
revisions.... I do not have the original schematics, sadly.

Incidentally, I have cloned the later 208 oscillator section and it is 
not replaced by the 259. You will notice that the controls are different 
and the spike wave is exclusive to the 208. There is a totally different 
implementation of the AM section as well. The 259 sounds better IMHO, 
but is a much bigger circuit.


Mark







Aaron Lanterman wrote:

> 
> Trying to find info on the Buchla 259, my pages come up as hits two and 
> three. ;)
> 
> Anyway... when did it come out? Did it come out after the music easel? 
> Looking at the schematics, the evolution seems to flow like this:
> 
> 258 -> Easel -> 259
> 
> but I wanted to confirm I wasn't crazy on the 259 coming after the Easel.
> 
> It seems that if one wanted to "clone" the Easel, that wouldn't make 
> sense (besides being incredibly difficult as Peter G. once noted) - one 
> would want to take recent inventions like the 259, the Bergfotron, 
> Patchell (I think it was Jim, using the THAT 140 array), and Mark Verbos 
> developments into account in making an improved version.
> 
> Not that I was considering making such a thing into a senior design 
> class project or anything. :)
> 
> - Aaron
>