Uploaded December 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
If you were into music back in 1980, and you owned an Apple II computer, you might have purchased the Mountain Hardware MusicSystem, from a company in Santa Cruz, California.
This is not an ordinary sound card that you would have in a computer today or even in the late 80s, it was a synthesized soundboard specifically for music, which contains digital sample representations of many instruments. Not MIDI, but within it’s own proprietary coding system.
This was a high-end product and not generally something the average person would have.
It even has a wired light pen to compose music!
My uncle gave this card to me in the early 1980s and it’s working perfect within this Apple IIe computer. I decided to completely clean this out, including a full disassembly and reassembly of all boards, contacts, keyboard keys and peripheral jacks last night. The computer is working perfect.
There’s very little information out there about this sound card, and I do have some YouTube videos from many many years ago if you look me up, and I probably am the only one that has them.
Here’s a couple samples of songs tonight, playing in stereo on my hi-fi system.
If you were into music back in 1980, and you owned an Apple II computer, you might have purchased the Mountain Hardware MusicSystem, from a company in Santa Cruz, California.
This is not an ordinary sound card that you would have in a computer today or even in the late 80s, it was a synthesized soundboard specifically for music, which contains digital sample representations of many instruments. Not MIDI, but within it’s own proprietary coding system.
This was a high-end product and not generally something the average person would have.
It even has a wired light pen to compose music!
My uncle gave this card to me in the early 1980s and it’s working perfect within this Apple IIe computer. I decided to completely clean this out, including a full disassembly and reassembly of all boards, contacts, keyboard keys and peripheral jacks last night. The computer is working perfect.
There’s very little information out there about this sound card, and I do have some YouTube videos from many many years ago if you look me up, and I probably am the only one that has them.
Here’s a couple samples of songs tonight, playing in stereo on my hi-fi system.
