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The SID chip (originally the MOS Technology 6581) was the sound chip used in the original Commodore 64, and is widely credited with helping make that machine one of the best-selling home computers of the 1980s.

I know that Commodore used the 6581 and its successor, the 8580, in a few other 8-bit machines, such as the CBM-II and the Commodore 128. And MOS released a consumer version of the SID, the 6582, that was used in 1991 in the third-party SID Symphony cartridge that enabled the Commodore 64 to produce six-voice stereo output.

But were the 6581, 6582, or 8580 ever used in contemporaneous products that were neither produced by Commodore nor intended for use with Commodore computers? (By "contemporaneous", I mean products that were manufactured while the SID was still in production, as opposed to contemporary retrocomputing projects.)

Given the existence of the SID Symphony, it seems plausible that similar expansion cards or cartridges could have been marketed for non-Commodore microcomputers, but the only one I'm aware of is the Innovation SSI-2001 for IBM PC-compatible machines. (For Atari 8-bit machines, there are the Slight SID cartridge and SIDari board, but these are modern-day hobbyist projects.) Were there no other home computers of the 1980s and early 1990s, or contemporaneous add-on devices for them, that incorporated a SID chip?

Another question on this site addresses the widespread use of dedicated sound chips in 1980s arcade machines; did any of them use the SID? If not, then why not? Were other manufacturers' sound chips cheaper, faster, or better in some way?

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  • You've noted the only exception that I'm aware of. I'm a huge fan of Commodore and MOS Technology. I've lived through their heydey and read a few books on their history. I'd say that it is very unlikely that Commodore would do such a thing given their competitive nature and their focus on their own products. The 6502 and 6522 were the only MOS Technologies chips that showed up in other products contemporaneously. I would guess that was due to those being more generic products that weren't enough to make a whole computer. Commented Oct 2 at 2:18
  • @chicks AFAIK there were several other MOS Technologies chips used in non-Commodore products—examples include the 6532 and MCS652, which were used in various Atari machines and peripherals. And as I point out in the question, MOS Technologies did market the SID chip (as the 6582) specifically for third-party use, so I'm not sure you can blame Commodore's anticompetitive nature for its lack of uptake. Commented Oct 2 at 4:09

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