The instrument
Greengate was founded in the early 1980s by Dave Green and Colin Holgate. The company had some success with the DS:3 sample card for Apple II+ and IIe. A set with a screen and keyboard was supplied. Greengate wanted to launch the new version DS:4 in 1986, but had technical problems, which delayed delivery. In the end, 50 units were sold. Among the buyers were Spike Edney, who played the keyboards on Queen's tours, and Mike Turtle, who owned the smem copy. Greengate went bankrupt in 1987.
Details
The DS:4 is a rack mounted unit, controlled by an Apple II, with an eight voice and 16 bit sound sampler. In addition it has CD quality audio, MIDI and SMPTE connections. The SMPTE connections could be used to synchronise the sound samples to time code.