Bank Street Music Writer was an application for composing and playing music for Atari 8-bit

Atari 8-bit family

The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...

, Apple II

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

, Commodore 64

Commodore International

Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...

 and DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

 (PC

IBM PC compatible

IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...

). It was written by Glen Clancy and published by Mindscape

Mindscape

Mindscape is an international software publishing company, previously part of The Learning Company. They are now affiliated with EA . As of 2004, the group has offices in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. It has an annual turnover of €38 million and employs 150 people. Mindscape...

. The original Atari version, developed under the name "Note Processor" was released in 1985 and used the computer's on-board sound chip to produce four-voice music recordings. The Commodore 64 version also used that system's on-board sound port, while the Apple and PC versions required a sound card

Sound card

A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...

 that was included in the retail box (a clone of the Apple Mockingboard

Mockingboard

The Mockingboard is a sound card for the Apple II family of microcomputers built by Sweet Micro Systems. The standard Apple II machines never had particularly good sound, especially when compared to competitors like the SID chip-enabled Commodore 64...

), or alternately use the 3-voice sound chip standard with all Tandy and PCjr computers.

Users could input sheet music (up to four voices on the Atari version and six on the PC) with the keyboard

Computer keyboard

In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...

 and play back the results or print it. The program also came with several pre-entered songs, including an excerpt from the Nutcracker Suite

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

 and "On Top Of Old Smokey", which form the basis of the tutorial.