Sound Generation Using 8-bit Chips

Ever since I installed an AY-3-8910 Programmable Sound Generator chip in the Compukit UK101, I've been interested in sound generation on 8-bit machines. The modern ATmega chips are, of course, 8-bit microcontrollers.

Several designs were popular in the 1980s for generating sound effects and music in video games. The General Instrument AY-3-8910 was one of the early digital sound generators. Probably the best known sound chip was the Commodore 64's SID, also known as the 6581. Later sound chips by Yamaha were designed as improvements on the AY-3-8910. Later still, PC-based sound cards were introduced with chip and chip-sets such as the OPL3.

My goal is to connect a classic sound chip to the Atmel AVR microcontroller in an Arduino board. The Arduino can already generate rudimentary sound using the 'tone' library, but I'd like to connect an external sound chip and recreate those 8-bit sounds on the original hardware.