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The main issue was if it was JUST the ST line versus Macs and PCs, it would have done better, but there was little system line called the Amiga that stole a lot of its thunder. Ultimately, though, as history has shown, it really didn't matter what your system was or did, the PC DOS/Windows line would have still ended up on top.

 

Makes you wonder how Commodore would have contended had Tramiel stayed at the top there, plenty of speculation for that though, but it's possible they could have been selling the Amiga without the split market there was with the ST+Amiga. Then there would have been a better chance for commodore to maintain a place in a niche market like Apple when PCs became the norm. Alternately, maybe they could have stayed ahead of PCs in the European market...

 

Commodore had been a giant in the home computer market throughout the US and Europe with the C64, but really failed to repeat this in the US. (and their later success in Europe was still limited compared to the C64) Perhaps the'd have done better had they remained under Tramiel's leadership. But who knows?

 

 

Plenty of other speculation on the topic though, like what might have happened if Jack had been aware of Atari's previously shelved (but fully prototyped) 68000 computer projects when he took over. (namely the Gaza and Sierra 68000 projects)

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I got my beat up 520 STFM from a local computer shop for about £160 in about 1990. I already had an Atari 2600 and an Atari Lynx but my home computer was a Sinclair Spectrum +2a. A few of my friends had recently got the 520 STE discovery pack and once playing some of the games I wanted one so bad. It had Tos 1.2 so played everything and the disc drive had been replaced for a double sided drive so I was pleased about that.

 

I picked up HiSoft basic very quickly and then moved onto STOS and always intended to learn assembler but just never got round to it, something I still regret to this day. I also got very nifty indeed with Hyperpaint 2 and produced some excellent artwork using it.

 

Learning to program the ST is still something I would love to do, I would also quite like to replace my battered and now cream 520 STFM with a 1040 STE or above to play soem of the 1 meg games and STE only goodies.

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The main issue was if it was JUST the ST line versus Macs and PCs, it would have done better, but there was little system line called the Amiga that stole a lot of its thunder. Ultimately, though, as history has shown, it really didn't matter what your system was or did, the PC DOS/Windows line would have still ended up on top.

 

Makes you wonder how Commodore would have contended had Tramiel stayed at the top there, plenty of speculation for that though, but it's possible they could have been selling the Amiga without the split market there was with the ST+Amiga. Then there would have been a better chance for commodore to maintain a place in a niche market like Apple when PCs became the norm. Alternately, maybe they could have stayed ahead of PCs in the European market...

 

Commodore had been a giant in the home computer market throughout the US and Europe with the C64, but really failed to repeat this in the US. (and their later success in Europe was still limited compared to the C64) Perhaps the'd have done better had they remained under Tramiel's leadership. But who knows?

 

 

Plenty of other speculation on the topic though, like what might have happened if Jack had been aware of Atari's previously shelved (but fully prototyped) 68000 computer projects when he took over. (namely the Gaza and Sierra 68000 projects)

 

If Jack had stayed at Commodore 3 things would never have happened...

 

1. The Commodore Plus/4 travesty would never have happened

2. The Commodore 16 would have been sold for $75-100 maximum to replace the VIC20 as low cost intro to home computing.

3. The Amiga would never have been marketed as a business machine and not for $1500

 

Those three little changes alone would have made a huge difference to the fortunes of Commodore. Also Jack would never have allowed a complete a$$hole like Medhi Ali to be incharge of [bankrupting] Commodore by killing off the A500 to launch the less capable incompatible A600 OR the underpowered 14mhz AGA 5 years too late blah blah.

 

As for the Atari projects I don't think people really understand just how desperate Jack was to actually start generating some revenue as money was running out quick at Atari, the two 68000 based prototypes would have cost a lot more than the A1000 to produce and maybe more than the Apple Mac. This was no good for either the Atari brand (gaming company) OR his financial situation. The ST was a good cheap machine built to a price, maybe one or two custom chips would have come in handy here and there like AMY instead of the crappy Yamaha YM chip but otherwise cost was the major influencing factor of the ST design really. It needed to be as fast as a Mac, look as good as an ST in static screenshots and sell for up to 1/3 the price of either to seal the deal and get some money coming into the company before it all ended very fast at the hands of the liquidators again.

 

Whilst Jack was an amazingly cunning business man, if your hands are financially tied there is nothing you can do to make up for that until you make back the money/revenue you had available at Commodore in the C64's heyday.

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If Jack had stayed at Commodore 3 things would never have happened...

 

1. The Commodore Plus/4 travesty would never have happened

2. The Commodore 16 would have been sold for $75-100 maximum to replace the VIC20 as low cost intro to home computing.

3. The Amiga would never have been marketed as a business machine and not for $1500

 

Those three little changes alone would have made a huge difference to the fortunes of Commodore. Also Jack would never have allowed a complete a$$hole like Medhi Ali to be incharge of [bankrupting] Commodore by killing off the A500 to launch the less capable incompatible A600 OR the underpowered 14mhz AGA 5 years too late blah blah.

 

4. Commodore most likely would not have obtained the Amiga.

 

The Amiga people knew Jack's cheap tactics well, and that's the reason they avoided him at Atari. Any time you see Jack coming, you know you're likely to be fired in a "cost cutting" measure. I believe the official story goes that Jack (now at Atari) wanted the chipset but not the people. How typically Jack. Would have been great for him to stay at Commodore; someone with more money might have bought Atari, and the likelihood that the Amiga would have gone to Atari (which would have been fitting) would have only increased if Jack had stayed at Commodore. Too bad!

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As for the Atari projects I don't think people really understand just how desperate Jack was to actually start generating some revenue as money was running out quick at Atari, the two 68000 based prototypes would have cost a lot more than the A1000 to produce and maybe more than the Apple Mac. This was no good for either the Atari brand (gaming company) OR his financial situation. The ST was a good cheap machine built to a price, maybe one or two custom chips would have come in handy here and there like AMY instead of the crappy Yamaha YM chip but otherwise cost was the major influencing factor of the ST design really. It needed to be as fast as a Mac, look as good as an ST in static screenshots and sell for up to 1/3 the price of either to seal the deal and get some money coming into the company before it all ended very fast at the hands of the liquidators again.

 

Whilst Jack was an amazingly cunning business man, if your hands are financially tied there is nothing you can do to make up for that until you make back the money/revenue you had available at Commodore in the C64's heyday.

 

Well, I don't think there's enough info on the Atari 68000 projuct to judge things, they could have been relatively similar in terms of cost to the Amiga chipset. (though probably not Gaza) If anything, it probably would have been one of the designs to be picked up, and from what I've read it would seem far more likely (and practical) to choose Sierra 68000 for this. (Gaza apears to be a high-end workstation with some similarities to Sierra, but also using dual 68000's)

 

The YM2149 was also the I/O chip, so you'd need to either keep it or get a seperate I/O chip inless you had that built into another sound chip. As for AMY, it would have been a nice addition, and may have been an option had Tramiel kept on the development team. For better sound in the ST, you could have gone a simpler route as well, a relatively inexpensive FM syntheis chip would go a long way. There were plenty of Yamaha synth chips to choose from, and several low-cost ones as well. (the YM2413 being particularly cut-down, though also rather limited) The YM2612 used in the Sega Genesis and FM Towns could have been a good choice, a decent 6-channel FM synth chip that also featured an 8-bit DAC on the 6th channel (FM on that channel has to disabled), so you could possibly get some better digitized sound playback (voices, sfx, and some instruments, especially percussion) than noramlly possible through the 2149. (and the 2149 itsself would still be a nice complement)

 

 

The Amiga people knew Jack's cheap tactics well, and that's the reason they avoided him at Atari. Any time you see Jack coming, you know you're likely to be fired in a "cost cutting" measure. I believe the official story goes that Jack (now at Atari) wanted the chipset but not the people. How typically Jack. Would have been great for him to stay at Commodore; someone with more money might have bought Atari, and the likelihood that the Amiga would have gone to Atari (which would have been fitting) would have only increased if Jack had stayed at Commodore. Too bad!

 

You mean they'd have stayed with Atari. They'd already gotten funding ($500,000 iirc) from Warner and a deal to allow the Amiga hardware to be adapted into a game console and sold by Atari and, eventually, as the complete computer as well. However, the current deal was rather unattractive for Amiga (I beleive all they got out of it was the funding, no royaltees or such), hence why they were trying to get out of that situation. Had another company baught up Atari, it's possible they could have kept Amiga, but probably would have had to make compromises with a new contract.

Edited by kool kitty89
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Not a bad point there, and how many computers see the light of day in

6 months or less? (and actually be viable machines)... :)

 

 

I will try and find the archives about those crazy early JT days at Atari and stories like having to re-compile their own 68000 version of GEM every day or so during the development process as Digital Research didn't know any 68k coding. Was really mad times and a great story.

 

If Jack had stayed at Commodore 3 things would never have happened...

 

1. The Commodore Plus/4 travesty would never have happened

2. The Commodore 16 would have been sold for $75-100 maximum to replace the VIC20 as low cost intro to home computing.

3. The Amiga would never have been marketed as a business machine and not for $1500

 

Those three little changes alone would have made a huge difference to the fortunes of Commodore. Also Jack would never have allowed a complete a$$hole like Medhi Ali to be incharge of [bankrupting] Commodore by killing off the A500 to launch the less capable incompatible A600 OR the underpowered 14mhz AGA 5 years too late blah blah.

 

4. Commodore most likely would not have obtained the Amiga.

 

The Amiga people knew Jack's cheap tactics well, and that's the reason they avoided him at Atari. Any time you see Jack coming, you know you're likely to be fired in a "cost cutting" measure. I believe the official story goes that Jack (now at Atari) wanted the chipset but not the people. How typically Jack. Would have been great for him to stay at Commodore; someone with more money might have bought Atari, and the likelihood that the Amiga would have gone to Atari (which would have been fitting) would have only increased if Jack had stayed at Commodore. Too bad!

 

Possibly, not sure though as Jack was also still looking for the next thing as well and at Commodore he would have had Irving Gould's money to play with and MOS Technologies to fabricate the chipset anyway so would be more than $1 per share he offer when he was at Atari. As far as I know Amiga Computers Inc would only have licensed the chipset for use by Atari not sold the rights to it outright. The money brought in would then pay for further development as I understand it from the Amiga History video with Jay and RJ and the rest of the team talking about 83-85.

 

As for the Atari projects I don't think people really understand just how desperate Jack was to actually start generating some revenue as money was running out quick at Atari, the two 68000 based prototypes would have cost a lot more than the A1000 to produce and maybe more than the Apple Mac. This was no good for either the Atari brand (gaming company) OR his financial situation. The ST was a good cheap machine built to a price, maybe one or two custom chips would have come in handy here and there like AMY instead of the crappy Yamaha YM chip but otherwise cost was the major influencing factor of the ST design really. It needed to be as fast as a Mac, look as good as an ST in static screenshots and sell for up to 1/3 the price of either to seal the deal and get some money coming into the company before it all ended very fast at the hands of the liquidators again.

 

Whilst Jack was an amazingly cunning business man, if your hands are financially tied there is nothing you can do to make up for that until you make back the money/revenue you had available at Commodore in the C64's heyday.

 

Well, I don't think there's enough info on the Atari 68000 projuct to judge things, they could have been relatively similar in terms of cost to the Amiga chipset. (though probably not Gaza) If anything, it probably would have been one of the designs to be picked up, and from what I've read it would seem far more likely (and practical) to choose Sierra 68000 for this. (Gaza apears to be a high-end workstation with some similarities to Sierra, but also using dual 68000's)

 

The YM2149 was also the I/O chip, so you'd need to either keep it or get a seperate I/O chip inless you had that built into another sound chip. As for AMY, it would have been a nice addition, and may have been an option had Tramiel kept on the development team. For better sound in the ST, you could have gone a simpler route as well, a relatively inexpensive FM syntheis chip would go a long way. There were plenty of Yamaha synth chips to choose from, and several low-cost ones as well. (the YM2413 being particularly cut-down, though also rather limited) The YM2612 used in the Sega Genesis and FM Towns could have been a good choice, a decent 6-channel FM synth chip that also featured an 8-bit DAC on the 6th channel (FM on that channel has to disabled), so you could possibly get some better digitized sound playback (voices, sfx, and some instruments, especially percussion) than noramlly possible through the 2149. (and the 2149 itsself would still be a nice complement)

 

It's all speculation I agree, not enough is known about the Sierra machine chipset really to price it up $/feature but the sales price of the A1000 had a huge mark up for both Commodore and the dealers, if Jack was there he wouldn't have done that given the reason he left was because Commodore weren't singing from the same 'pile em high, sell em cheap, dominate the market share' attitude that Jack had warmed to.

 

The Mac had stereo DACs for sound I think, not sure, but from memory it was an Ensoniq sound chip. There were indeed plenty of options it just seams the AY/YM chip was the worst possible one to make at the time but probably the simplest to implement if it was being used for I/O too.

 

The Amiga people knew Jack's cheap tactics well, and that's the reason they avoided him at Atari. Any time you see Jack coming, you know you're likely to be fired in a "cost cutting" measure. I believe the official story goes that Jack (now at Atari) wanted the chipset but not the people. How typically Jack. Would have been great for him to stay at Commodore; someone with more money might have bought Atari, and the likelihood that the Amiga would have gone to Atari (which would have been fitting) would have only increased if Jack had stayed at Commodore. Too bad!

 

You mean they'd have stayed with Atari. They'd already gotten funding ($500,000 iirc) from Warner and a deal to allow the Amiga hardware to be adapted into a game console and sold by Atari and, eventually, as the complete computer as well. However, the current deal was rather unattractive for Amiga (I beleive all they got out of it was the funding, no royaltees or such), hence why they were trying to get out of that situation. Had another company baught up Atari, it's possible they could have kept Amiga, but probably would have had to make compromises with a new contract.

 

All I know for certain, from the words of Jay Miner himself in the interviews on record is there was no talk of pre Jack Tramiel Atari, no talk of a deal with them specifically or of any other money other than the $1,000,000 for 1 month deal with Jack Tramiel at Atari again. Jay Miner had used the personal funds from his property to keep the company going is all that is mentioned. They never mentioned anything concrete about a deal with Atari-Warner but that's not to say initial negotiations didn't go well and then fell through as when talking about 1984 era it was all about the ultimate home games computer not just a console, Jay was adamant his machine would have keyboard ports and all the I/O you see on the A1000 inc the expansion bus, the only thing Commodore forced him to add was an extra 256k RAM expansion panel in the front of the machine.

 

Anyway back to the ST, one thing I really liked about it was the colour, it looked really smart and professional in that slightly blue pale grey colour with the white keys, especially the original ST with no internal drive. That is one of the nicest looking all in one computers I know, certainly much smarter than the A500 Amiga that looked like a melted Commodore 128 (yuck)

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All I know for certain, from the words of Jay Miner himself in the interviews on record is there was no talk of pre Jack Tramiel Atari, no talk of a deal with them specifically or of any other money other than the $1,000,000 for 1 month deal with Jack Tramiel at Atari again. Jay Miner had used the personal funds from his property to keep the company going is all that is mentioned. They never mentioned anything concrete about a deal with Atari-Warner but that's not to say initial negotiations didn't go well and then fell through as when talking about 1984 era it was all about the ultimate home games computer not just a console, Jay was adamant his machine would have keyboard ports and all the I/O you see on the A1000 inc the expansion bus, the only thing Commodore forced him to add was an extra 256k RAM expansion panel in the front of the machine.

 

Of course with the "breach of contract" lawsuits flying around, I wouldn't have expected Jay Miner to admit to anything, nor in the settled aftermath.

 

The infamous $500,000 must have been indicative of this elusive deal, however.

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All I know for certain, from the words of Jay Miner himself in the interviews on record is there was no talk of pre Jack Tramiel Atari, no talk of a deal with them specifically or of any other money other than the $1,000,000 for 1 month deal with Jack Tramiel at Atari again. Jay Miner had used the personal funds from his property to keep the company going is all that is mentioned. They never mentioned anything concrete about a deal with Atari-Warner but that's not to say initial negotiations didn't go well and then fell through as when talking about 1984 era it was all about the ultimate home games computer not just a console, Jay was adamant his machine would have keyboard ports and all the I/O you see on the A1000 inc the expansion bus, the only thing Commodore forced him to add was an extra 256k RAM expansion panel in the front of the machine.

 

Of course with the "breach of contract" lawsuits flying around, I wouldn't have expected Jay Miner to admit to anything, nor in the settled aftermath.

 

The infamous $500,000 must have been indicative of this elusive deal, however.

 

The Video interviews for the production were shot in early 1994 I think. It's funny they didn't talk about the Atari ST or the Mac or anything. Only some archive footage of RJ Mical talking about the Commodore/Atari thing and how he squeezed and extra 25 cents per share out of Commodore, that guy was funny on stage...should do standup comedy really.

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The Mac had stereo DACs for sound I think, not sure, but from memory it was an Ensoniq sound chip. There were indeed plenty of options it just seams the AY/YM chip was the worst possible one to make at the time but probably the simplest to implement if it was being used for I/O too.

 

Don't know about the earl Mac's (and I couldn't find a refrence in the quick search I did), but the Apple IIGS had an Ensoniq ES5503 "DOC" 32 channel (16 channel stereo) wavetable systhesis chip.

 

In a few previous discussions the use of a POKEY (or multiple ones, or a derivative) should have been used instead, but while it has I/O functions as well, it can't interface with a 68000 properly in its current form, so if it was used it wouldn't take the place of the 2149. (though a cost reduced, smaller package sound-only POKEY could have worked, or even had an integrated twin or quad pokey chip -the latter was in the arcades but I'm not sure it was an actual POKEY derivative or how expensive it was)

The advantage there is POKEY is a custom design that's property of Atari (so not purchasing or licensing costs) and is still a pretty decent sound chip. (and with the I/O functions removed and a smaller package it would be cheaper in its own right, though using a larer multi-pokey would mitigate this somewhat, a single one would still be a good addition to the 2149, though dual/twin one would proably have been nice) They could have initially used extra stock of POKEYs left over from the 8-bit line as well, prior to switching to a cheaper sound-only one.

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The Mac had stereo DACs for sound I think, not sure, but from memory it was an Ensoniq sound chip. There were indeed plenty of options it just seams the AY/YM chip was the worst possible one to make at the time but probably the simplest to implement if it was being used for I/O too.

 

Don't know about the earl Mac's (and I couldn't find a refrence in the quick search I did), but the Apple IIGS had an Ensoniq ES5503 "DOC" 32 channel (16 channel stereo) wavetable systhesis chip.

 

In a few previous discussions the use of a POKEY (or multiple ones, or a derivative) should have been used instead, but while it has I/O functions as well, it can't interface with a 68000 properly in its current form, so if it was used it wouldn't take the place of the 2149. (though a cost reduced, smaller package sound-only POKEY could have worked, or even had an integrated twin or quad pokey chip -the latter was in the arcades but I'm not sure it was an actual POKEY derivative or how expensive it was)

The advantage there is POKEY is a custom design that's property of Atari (so not purchasing or licensing costs) and is still a pretty decent sound chip. (and with the I/O functions removed and a smaller package it would be cheaper in its own right, though using a larer multi-pokey would mitigate this somewhat, a single one would still be a good addition to the 2149, though dual/twin one would proably have been nice) They could have initially used extra stock of POKEYs left over from the 8-bit line as well, prior to switching to a cheaper sound-only one.

 

I guess start up costs are the issue here, being down to his last few $$ after purchasing Atari Jack needed something quickly and also cheap. I'm guessing Yamaha gave them the best possible price and buying an off the shelf part meant they didn't need to worry about re-tooling for a modified Pokey or manufacture of chips themselves or to a licensed third party company etc.

 

Interesting to see you mentioned the Ensoniq chip, Bob Yannes created SID in 1980 for MOS/Commodore for standard hourly engineer wages and then left very soon after (which is why SID remained pretty much unchanged until the last C64 motherboard in the 90s) and co-founded Ensoniq and produced these new wonderful sound chips as well as some of the best analogue synthesizers in the 80s. As an engineer he wanted more freedom to expand on his ideas. Maybe quantities were an issue too but definitely price, the Ensoniq chip in the IIGS would cost a lot more than the Yamaha YM chip anyway and with Jack it was a bottom line cost issue.

 

Anyway having the YM chip didn't mean Gauntlet 1 on the ST sounded bad, just because it was there didn't mean you had to use it in it's basic form...good programming overcomes things and 1 sample channel is OK even with a game running as you can see if you play ST Gauntlet 1 (the best home computer conversion of Gauntlet ever made in the world)

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I guess start up costs are the issue here, being down to his last few $$ after purchasing Atari Jack needed something quickly and also cheap. I'm guessing Yamaha gave them the best possible price and buying an off the shelf part meant they didn't need to worry about re-tooling for a modified Pokey or manufacture of chips themselves or to a licensed third party company etc.

 

Yeah I suppose so, if anything the POKEY could have been included in addition to the 2149, just for added sound. (given it was an Atari owned peice of hardware it may be cheaper than adding something else) The POKEY also had the nice feature of allowing its (4-bit) DACs to be written to directly for digital audio playback. (rather than having to use other, indirect methods via the YM2149)

If Yamaha had really given them a good price, perhaps getting an additional sound chip form them would also have been a good option. As I mentioned a Yamaha FM synthesis chip is another option that should be relatively inexpeisive, the YM2413 is the first thought, probably the most cut-down available and in a narrow 18-pin DIP. The YM2612 (Sega Genesis) is an interesting option as well, particularly with built-in 8-bit DAC available through channel 6. (with that channels FM turned off)

 

Interesting to see you mentioned the Ensoniq chip, Bob Yannes created SID in 1980 for MOS/Commodore for standard hourly engineer wages and then left very soon after (which is why SID remained pretty much unchanged until the last C64 motherboard in the 90s) and co-founded Ensoniq and produced these new wonderful sound chips as well as some of the best analogue synthesizers in the 80s. As an engineer he wanted more freedom to expand on his ideas. Maybe quantities were an issue too but definitely price, the Ensoniq chip in the IIGS would cost a lot more than the Yamaha YM chip anyway and with Jack it was a bottom line cost issue.

 

Yeah, a lot of that came up here too: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=145867 (along with other interesting coincidences surrounding the Panther)

 

Anyway having the YM chip didn't mean Gauntlet 1 on the ST sounded bad, just because it was there didn't mean you had to use it in it's basic form...good programming overcomes things and 1 sample channel is OK even with a game running as you can see if you play ST Gauntlet 1 (the best home computer conversion of Gauntlet ever made in the world)

 

There were worse cases certainly, and almost anything (except maybe the Channel-F) beats what the average IBM/compatible PC had available prior to the late '80s. (early models of the ZX spectrum were limited to a "beeper" as well)

The sound capabilities of the AY/YM2149 chip are similar in many ways to the (similarly common) Texas Instruments SN76489 PSG, though each has its own advantages, the sound is often very similar. (the ST renditions in Space Harrier are poor compared to the Master System's ones for example, but programming has a lot to do with this, the Amiga Version sounds absoulutely terrible -and not because of the SID-ish sound it has, but just the way it's handeled overall an how it cuts out all over the place)

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The Soundblaster soundcards were FM synthesis so I presume similar to the Sega Genesis/Megadrive chip? If so these were much superior sounding things....just google for the Gauntlet IV soundtrack. Not that I owned a PC before 1994....no point at all...I'd rather blow my money on sports cars in the late 80s than a 'Multimedia PC' haha.

 

I would like to say though that the Atari PC1 was probably the best looking PC of all time (well it looked like a Mega ST and they look lovely anyway)

 

Hmm actually I have been doing a lot of reading lately on the Epyx Handy chipset, and I have to say Atari were mental not to grab the Mikey and Suzy graphics chipset designed by Dave Needles and R J Mical (same team as Amiga if you add Jay Miner).

 

In addition to the usual Copper and Blitter and 4096 as per the Amiga the Lynx/Handy Mikey chipset would have given the ST 4 channel 8bit stereo sampled sound with controlled panning (so superior to the Amiga which is fixed hard wired 2 stereo pairs) and the Suzy chipset had incredible sprite scaling abilities similar to a SNES. It really was a missed opportunity by Atari really and I know RJ and Dave could have engineered it into a 68000 system in a few months.These guys were geniuses!

 

An ST with Sega arcade style sprite scaling and Amiga beating sound in 1988 would have made all the difference, much better than the STe upgrade anyway...I'm sure people would have paid £100/$150 extra for something superior to the Amiga.

 

Edit: I meant £100/$150 extra over the price of an Atari 520STFM not above the cost of an already dodgy price of £500+TAX for the A500

Edited by oky2000
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Coming from the Atari 8-bit line of computers before I bought an ST I was very disappointed with the sound quality of the ST line. That Yamaha chip really didn't seem to be nearly as pleasing to my ear as Pokey. It wasn't a deal breaker by any means, but I just felt sound wise I had taken a step backwards.

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The Soundblaster soundcards were FM synthesis so I presume similar to the Sega Genesis/Megadrive chip? If so these were much superior sounding things....just google for the Gauntlet IV soundtrack. Not that I owned a PC before 1994....no point at all...I'd rather blow my money on sports cars in the late 80s than a 'Multimedia PC' haha.

 

Sound Blaster is sometimes poorly ustilzed, though rember there was an array of variations of the early SB line (through the SB-16), and the Adlib cad was similar (the original SB has the same OPL2 FM synth chip, all subsequent ones being compatible as well, the main difference being the 15-pin gameport/midi-out and the digital sound channel with dedicated "digital sound processor")

 

For the Sound Blaster line specifically, there are plenty examples of good music on it, sometimes better than the Amiga (fairly often if the game was originally created for the PC, occasionally PC ports sounded fairly good as well), of course the high-end professional Roland synthesizers (MT-32 and compatible/derivatives) were the standard for high quality music in PC games. (very expensiveexpencive of course, though very high quality, often symilar to the redbook CD audio tracks in later CD-ROM re-releases) The Soundblaster (along with similar FM synthesis of the early Adlib and later Proaudio Spectrum cards) was pretty much the standard for PC gaming prior to common general midi cards (and CD/digital audio).

 

Some examples:

(Space Quest III)

Amiga version for comparison:

(wing commander)

(WC Amiga version)

(Secret of Monkey Island)

(Amiga Monkey Island)

(X-Wing, Collector's CD-ROM, improved midi over the floppy version, unusually, the Rolland rendition isn't as superior as usual, perhaps they were catering more to general midi by then)

(I'd post links to the roland version, but that's really not neccessary for the discussion, thery're not har to find on youtube though)

 

FM synthessis is just a form of synthesized sounds, a very wide range of variations in this, Yamaha offerred a wide array of FM Sound chips (and others, or FM synth chips that included other features as well, like PSS/PSG and digital sample playback), many being directly related to eachother, and some directly compatible as well. Like with any format, poor utilization will give sub par performance. The Genesis tends to sound a bit different from adlib/soundblaster generally speaking, this is partially due to the Genesis featuring the PSG chip and the YM2612 having the 8-bit DAC (which is somethimes used for sample playback in music as well, particularly percussion, occasionally vocals)

 

Many arcade systems in the late '80s and early '90s uused Yamaha FM chips as well (many of Sega's system boards, including the System 16 the Genesis is derived from), the Neo Geo is another notable example.

For the Genesis specifically, here's kind of a random example:

(ice cap zone sonic 3, one of the songs Michael Jackson was rumered to have been involved with)

 

Now, more specifically, I suggested the YM2413 alternatively as it's pretty much the smallest, cheapest, most cut-down of Yamaha's chips available arround the time (actually a cut-down derivative of the OPL series common to the Adlib/SB cards), notably it was used in Yamaha keyboards, sound expansion modules for MSX computers and Sega's SG-1000 Mk.III, as well as built into Japanese master systems (basicly the same as the Mk.III, but with several add-ons incorporated into the Wester SMS case design).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWc9DxgbnT4 (R-Type)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4NM_01z-7s (Double Dragon)

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm actually I have been doing a lot of reading lately on the Epyx Handy chipset, and I have to say Atari were mental not to grab the Mikey and Suzy graphics chipset designed by Dave Needles and R J Mical (same team as Amiga if you add Jay Miner).

 

In addition to the usual Copper and Blitter and 4096 as per the Amiga the Lynx/Handy Mikey chipset would have given the ST 4 channel 8bit stereo sampled sound with controlled panning (so superior to the Amiga which is fixed hard wired 2 stereo pairs) and the Suzy chipset had incredible sprite scaling abilities similar to a SNES. It really was a missed opportunity by Atari really and I know RJ and Dave could have engineered it into a 68000 system in a few months.These guys were geniuses!

 

Interesting, but one possible reason is that the Handy chipset may not have worked well in conjunction with the 68000, can't remember the specifics, but this was brought up in a thread on the Lynx a while back. (possibly issues with the ST's display hardware as well, though that wasn't part of the Lynx discussion)

 

In the context of the Lynx sound chip, you'd need to either dedicate a lot of CPU time, or add a dedicated sound processor to do sample-based synthesis (like the Amiga or SNES), the former not being practical for games, the latter adding to cost (depending on what you used specifically, maybe if they got a good deal on some Z80's or 650x -possibly the latter in conjunction with lynx production in the case of a 65C02; probably not a DSP, inless they could find one cheap enough)

 

I think the STe's added sound hardware if fine though in combination with the proposed FM synthesis chip (onboard from the original model), in addition to the old YM2149, could have been a pretty nice set-up.

 

 

 

Coming from the Atari 8-bit line of computers before I bought an ST I was very disappointed with the sound quality of the ST line. That Yamaha chip really didn't seem to be nearly as pleasing to my ear as Pokey. It wasn't a deal breaker by any means, but I just felt sound wise I had taken a step backwards.

 

Yeah, it is rather simple, basibly the same chip used for sound in the Intelevision and Vectrex. (as well as many home computer designs like the ZX Spectrum and MSX) Also relatively similar to the Texas Instruments PSG chip in the ColecoVision, Master System, and Genesis. (also common and used in various things)

Still, it could be a nice addition to another sound chip like an FM synthesis one, the PSG often adds some nice contrast to Genesis music. (though honestly I think a POKEY would be even better in this respect, it couldn't fulfull the 2149's I/O functions in its current form)

Edited by kool kitty89
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The thing with PC games music was that whilst tunes utilising wavetable/fixed sample bank soundcards (Roland MT-32, Gravis Ultrasound) would have output their fixed instruments in 16bit sample quality (CD/DAT khz depending on board) the actual music was still limited to those fixed standard 100 or so built in instruments. So for this reason I don't think a lot of PC music was better. It's kind of similar to Super Nintendo game music which is again a similarly high quality set of fixed/standardised instruments used. Personal taste (most of the PC stuff sounded like a brass band in a box output in 16bit CD quality to me) but a Roland MT-32 couldn't reproduce the sound track of the Amiga demo Desert Dream for example. SFX on games however is a different matter.

 

In the case of the Gravis it was a problem with the lazy PC programmers as this definitely was superior hardware with multiple 16bit programmable DACs. Sound is very subjective anyway. Comparing a tune on the ST/Amiga/Genesis is difficult, for example music from Xennon 1 and Gauntlet IV is good to my ears regardless of soundchip driving it on each respective machine.

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The thing with PC games music was that whilst tunes utilising wavetable/fixed sample bank soundcards (Roland MT-32, Gravis Ultrasound) would have output their fixed instruments in 16bit sample quality (CD/DAT khz depending on board) the actual music was still limited to those fixed standard 100 or so built in instruments. So for this reason I don't think a lot of PC music was better. It's kind of similar to Super Nintendo game music which is again a similarly high quality set of fixed/standardised instruments used. Personal taste (most of the PC stuff sounded like a brass band in a box output in 16bit CD quality to me) but a Roland MT-32 couldn't reproduce the sound track of the Amiga demo Desert Dream for example. SFX on games however is a different matter.

 

The Rolland synthesiszers (MT-32 family) were quite different from later general midi wavetable sound cards (the current standard, though quality varies significantly depending on hardware)

The MT-32 did more than just "wavetable" or sample-based synthesis (like SNES or Amiga), it had actual synthesis capabilities rather than just changing the pitch of a fixed sample. In addition to that, it was not limited by its onboard set of samples in ROM, but could also accept additional samples into RAM. (which software could take advantage of)

 

Now, in some ways the SNES and Amiga are similar as well, they use sample based synthesis (changing pitch of various digitized audio samples), but don't have any hardcoded data whatsoever, software provides this and loads it into RAM (the SNES for example, has 64 kB of didicated SRAM to store compressed sample data for the audio subsystem)

 

Many general midi sound cards offer playback of external samples as well (I think some may have supported an Amiga like tracker through this as well, though maybe this was in software), of course digital audio playback was a key feature of the original Soundblaster line as well. (with the later SB 16 it was in "CD quality" 16-bit 44.1 kHz sampled stereo)

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The thing with PC games music was that whilst tunes utilising wavetable/fixed sample bank soundcards (Roland MT-32, Gravis Ultrasound) would have output their fixed instruments in 16bit sample quality (CD/DAT khz depending on board) the actual music was still limited to those fixed standard 100 or so built in instruments. So for this reason I don't think a lot of PC music was better. It's kind of similar to Super Nintendo game music which is again a similarly high quality set of fixed/standardised instruments used. Personal taste (most of the PC stuff sounded like a brass band in a box output in 16bit CD quality to me) but a Roland MT-32 couldn't reproduce the sound track of the Amiga demo Desert Dream for example. SFX on games however is a different matter.

 

The Rolland synthesiszers (MT-32 family) were quite different from later general midi wavetable sound cards (the current standard, though quality varies significantly depending on hardware)

The MT-32 did more than just "wavetable" or sample-based synthesis (like SNES or Amiga), it had actual synthesis capabilities rather than just changing the pitch of a fixed sample. In addition to that, it was not limited by its onboard set of samples in ROM, but could also accept additional samples into RAM. (which software could take advantage of)

 

Now, in some ways the SNES and Amiga are similar as well, they use sample based synthesis (changing pitch of various digitized audio samples), but don't have any hardcoded data whatsoever, software provides this and loads it into RAM (the SNES for example, has 64 kB of didicated SRAM to store compressed sample data for the audio subsystem)

 

Many general midi sound cards offer playback of external samples as well (I think some may have supported an Amiga like tracker through this as well, though maybe this was in software), of course digital audio playback was a key feature of the original Soundblaster line as well. (with the later SB 16 it was in "CD quality" 16-bit 44.1 kHz sampled stereo)

 

Yes but when you selected sound card for sound effects and music separately within DOS games of old the Roland was only selectable for music. It is not the same as an Amiga which you can take sampled from any instrument and do with them as you wish. I believe the hardware used to generate music on the SNES is more similar to the Roland than Paula soundchip in Amiga but I don't know too much about the SNES to be honest. In fact I wouldn't even call Paula a soundchip, it is literally 4 DACs hard wired to two stereo phono connectors via channels 1&3,2&4 and not much else (apart from a really agressive basic sound filter which you can activate). My point was merely that whilst the Roland was of superlative output quality it is nowhere near as flexible as the Amiga sound chip which by it's bare bones approach is just supremely versatile (but of course nowhere near the qaulity of a 16bit unit on the PC). Having said that someone asked me to take some original Amiga samples and tweak them (but not resample or quantise the samples) and then re-integrate them into the original MOD tune and re-record the output digitally onto a CD. The results were very impressive played back on a quality sound system and he was very happy and it sounded pretty damned good next to a commercial CD.

 

The Soundblaster 16 cards had both a DAC and an (OPL?) additional sound chip component to generate sound effects and music in games respectively.

 

My ideal soundchip would basically be either a virtual analogue synthesizer on a chip (in 16bit quality) or an actual analogue synth on a chip (which is effectively what SID was in it's limited way...but then remember the following Ensoniq soundchips are just massively expanded versions of SID with many revisions over time...as the designer of the SID actually owned Ensoniq so could do what he always wanted...and would have if happy at Commodore and allowed great financial resources on SID-II etc)

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  • 2 months later...

Some things...

 

1) Comparing the ST or Amiga to SNES or Megadrive is wrong. At the time the ST and Amiga reigned, around 85 to 90, there was basically the NES and the Master System around, which looked really poor compared to the mighty 16-Bitters from Atari and Commodore. The only system in that time, that compared or even surpassed the ST and Amiga was the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx, which came around 1988, and impressed with its almost arcade perfect R-Type port (not ocunting in the Neo Geo here, since that was really only a rich kids toy back then).

 

2) From todays view, it's nearly incomprehensible, why both companies, Atari and Commodore, were not able to release a new generation of machines with a competitive price around 1989, and instead traversing along their old design almost until their very end. I'd have loved to see a AGA specced Amiga released in the late eighties. The time AGA came out, I didn't care for Amigas anymore, because 386 ATs with 25MHZ, harddisks, VGA gfx capabilities were already crushing what little the Amiga or ST had to offer back then. All the cool games suddenly appeared for PCs, and not for Amiga or ST anymore, or just as halfassed ports (remember Wing Commander, Gunship2000, Doom, etc). Too little too late. But why? I mean, they (Atari) were able to solder together a competitive computer with a good price(the ST) in under a year in 85, so why didn't they do it again in 89/90?

Edited by Steril707
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If Jack had stayed at Commodore 3 things would never have happened...

 

1. The Commodore Plus/4 travesty would never have happened

2. The Commodore 16 would have been sold for $75-100 maximum to replace the VIC20 as low cost intro to home computing.

3. The Amiga would never have been marketed as a business machine and not for $1500

 

Those three little changes alone would have made a huge difference to the fortunes of Commodore. Also Jack would never have allowed a complete a$$hole like Medhi Ali to be incharge of [bankrupting] Commodore by killing off the A500 to launch the less capable incompatible A600 OR the underpowered 14mhz AGA 5 years too late blah blah.

 

4. Commodore most likely would not have obtained the Amiga.

 

The Amiga people knew Jack's cheap tactics well, and that's the reason they avoided him at Atari. Any time you see Jack coming, you know you're likely to be fired in a "cost cutting" measure. I believe the official story goes that Jack (now at Atari) wanted the chipset but not the people. How typically Jack. Would have been great for him to stay at Commodore; someone with more money might have bought Atari, and the likelihood that the Amiga would have gone to Atari (which would have been fitting) would have only increased if Jack had stayed at Commodore. Too bad!

It was not marketed at a business machine here in the US.

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Some things...

 

1) Comparing the ST or Amiga to SNES or Megadrive is wrong. At the time the ST and Amiga reigned, around 85 to 90, there was basically the NES and the Master System around, which looked really poor compared to the mighty 16-Bitters from Atari and Commodore. The only system in that time, that compared or even surpassed the ST and Amiga was the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx, which came around 1988, and impressed with its almost arcade perfect R-Type port (not ocunting in the Neo Geo here, since that was really only a rich kids toy back then).

 

2) From todays view, it's nearly incomprehensible, why both companies, Atari and Commodore, were not able to release a new generation of machines with a competitive price around 1989, and instead traversing along their old design almost until their very end. I'd have loved to see a AGA specced Amiga released in the late eighties. The time AGA came out, I didn't care for Amigas anymore, because 386 ATs with 25MHZ, harddisks, VGA gfx capabilities were already crushing what little the Amiga or ST had to offer back then. All the cool games suddenly appeared for PCs, and not for Amiga or ST anymore, or just as halfassed ports (remember Wing Commander, Gunship2000, Doom, etc). Too little too late. But why? I mean, they (Atari) were able to solder together a competitive computer with a good price(the ST) in under a year in 85, so why didn't they do it again in 89/90?

 

1) The ST/Amiga ports of R-Type/Outrun/Afterburner/Street Fighter ALL looked worse than the Japanese PC-Engine which was half the price and games cost the same even on import around the same in 1987 just one year after the Amiga was readily on sale....and it was 8/16bit not 16/32bit. I think it's fair to say the Megadrive parallax scrolling + 64 hardware sprites in addition to bliter and 4ch stereo already onboard is what Commodore should have aimed for technically as at least a stop gap machine until AGA (which also should have been a 28mhz 020 and 2mb chipram AND 1mb fastram and a fully 32bit architecture for AGA not a kludge). The STE should have been hurried along quicker to market and maybe the DSP on the Falcon was overkill and adding SNES/Megadrive type beefed up hardware would have been enough again along with a 28mhz 020.

 

2) Doom certainly was flavour of the decade (and all its imitators) which clearly was suited to the PC's architecture of massive CPU grunt and sod all else :) Without a 28mhz CPU of some 32bit flavour the ST/Amiga were stuffed. I have run Amiga Wing Commander (horrible game) on an 030 @ 33mhz and it is no different to a slow 486SX or fast 386DX really.

 

What is really strange is that IF the ST was packaged in a traditional PET/PC style 3 box design with detached keyboard and sold by Commodore as a business machine it would have sold by the bucketload. In the mid 80s Commodore was a very well respected brand by business customers....which they turned their back on in the late 80s to concentrate on the A500 for home sales. I still think the ST is a fantastic business machine especially with a quality keyboard like the Mega STE one and a nice sharp monochrome monitor. DTP/WP + GEM friendlyness was a good combination as was the genius of slaving the ST's 68000 to the SLM laser printers too. Unfortunately Atari is (and always will be) synonymous with gaming and businesses probably didn't really take the brand seriously sadly.

 

(Megadrive = Sega Genesis)

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