Decillionix

Decillionix

Founded	1983
Defunct	1987
Headquarters	Sunnyvale, California
Key people	Dan Retzinger
Products	DX-1 Splash Echo II Synthestra The Box

Decillionix was a company based in Sunnyvale, California which sold computer music hardware and software in the mid-1980s. Its first product was the DX-1 for the Apple II, sold in 1983. The DX-1 consisted of a monophonic 8-bit audio input card, a monophonic 8-bit audio output card, and the DX-1 Effects II software. Decillionix later produced MIDI software and hardware.^{[ citation needed ]}

Decillionix was run by Dan Retzinger. ^[1]

Decillionix ceased operations in 1987.^{[ citation needed ]}

Products

• Original DX-1 two-card sampler, and Effects II software for Apple II (1983) ^{[2] [3] [4]}
• Single card version of the hardware for Apple II (1984)
• Splash, an audio visualization program for Apple II (1984)
• Echo II, an effects program for Apple II (1985)
• P-Drum, a percussion sequencing program for Apple II (1985)
• Synthestra, an hierarchical MIDI sequencing program for Apple II (1986)
• The Box, a standalone MIDI effects device (1986)

Splash, P-Drum, and Synthestra were written by David Van Brink who also wrote Tubeway. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}

References

1. Dan Retzinger. president of Decillionix. sees a market among musicians for his product. He says the DX-l “does have some studio uses.“ and claims it was used to process some voices for a radio advertisement.
2. "Wayback Machine". eightbitsoundandfury.ld8.org. Archived from the original on 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2025-10-19.
3. Sound and Fury, Popular Computing, Volume 3, McGraw-Hill, 1983, ...Decillionix has introduced a sound-processing system for the Apple II and lie called the DX-1. The unit lets you save, process, modify, and play sounds entered from a microphone or other source...
4. "The Box" 1985 ...Around 1985 or so, give or take, I worked with a company called Decillionix on a couple or three music products..., david van brink
5. Unsolicited Praise - General JUCE discussion, ...My woeful tale – Wrote a nontraditional MIDI sequencer software for the Apple II (Synthestra, from Decillionix), in the 80’s. Kinda quirky, but I liked it for my own music… Then the Apple II went away, and in the 90’s rewrote it, mostly, under Mac OS. Then the Mac OS (basically) went away, and I’m high and dry again...
6. https://twitter.com/polyomino (david van brink)
7. https://handmade.network/m/polyomino ,Hello! (Tiny intro -- I'm David Van Brink, working on game Metareal, using my own OpenGL engine,…
8. Orchestrated with my own long-forgotten music software, “Synthestra” (MIDI) and P-Drum (sample player), both for the Apple II, distributed by Dan Retzinger’s company, Decillionix. david van brink // Thu 2008.10.2, omino pixel blog