AMY chip

[jindroush]

Hi,

 

Few weeks ago I asked here for some info about mysterious AMY music chip from Atari. Because there was almost no info about it, I started a hunt for the info.

 

I was lucky to get contact with all the developers of that chip.

 

You can read more on my site (see sig). Go to Atari/8bit - Hardware & technical info/VLSI chips/AMY. (I'm not putting link here intentionally ).

[t.skid]

Thank you, very interesting!

[Tempest]

Curt Vendel over at Atari Historical Society has a page about the AMY chip as well (which is where I first heard about it). Interesting stuff.

 

http://209.122.187.156:8080/computers/8bits/65xem.html

 

 

Tempest

[Thelen]

Great !, it's very interesting !

 

Thelen

[MegaManFan]

Reading it just makes me sad - another Atari innovation that could have revolutionized their product line and dominated market share in the field that due to mismanagement in the 80's went on the scrap heap.

[Curt Vendel]

Computer History is riddled with such events, technologies that were way ahead of their time that were never released, packaged into dead end systems or never properly marketed and fell to the wayside, other technologies like the PARC Altos computers which were equivalent and in many ways superior (with the exception of size) to the Mac, Amiga and ST were running internally within Xerox since the mid 70's and Xerox was a copier firm and didn't want to market and sell them (although they would've cost $20k each) but the point remains that the computer industry would've taken a 10 year "Giant leap" forward if they had been made available in the 70's.

 

Look up Control Data Corp's "Plato" network, these guys were using plasma screen dislays, graphics and animation for online access, reference and education.... this was all in the late 70's, it was a view of the Internet decades before Marc Andreseen even dreamed up Mosiac or Netscape.

 

Mindset was an IBM clone designed by the former head of Atari's Computer Division in 83' (he left Atari with a team of former Atari people) and created a computer with incredible Bit mapped Blitter graphics and animation. It had a design that earned it a place in the Museum of Modern Art. Yet it wasn't marketed well and then JVC bought up the firm and used the technology internally, another wasted technology.

 

This is only just a small handful of examples of missed opportunities and wasted technology.

 

 

 

Curt

[+davidcalgary29]

Yes, but don't you think that it's the "dead ends" that makes computing history -- and, particularly, Atari history -- so interesting? The "AMY" chip wouldn't have saved the 8-bit line from extinction, but its convoluted history now makes for compelling reading. And isn't this why we love Atari? After all, if Atari Corp. had made all the "right" business decisions (and this assumes that superior technology = winning business formula), Atari would've ended up a large, modern, and utterly bland company that survived by recycling old technology instead of introducing (and taking a risk on) exciting new products. Sort of like Nintendo. Ugh.

[Curt Vendel]

Not necessarily, I think it would've certainly have helped boost sales, look at the ST's.... The Tramiels consulting with Hybrid Arts on their Atari 8bit MIDI interface and wound up incorporating it into the ST, it was the ST's "killer app" and they sold a great deal of ST's to the music industry, they were prominant at all of the music industry shows and such, practically every Sam Goody was selling them, the STacy portable was a huge hit, you used to see it on The Tonight Show in the band all the time.

 

If the AMY had been incorporated and MIDI added to the 8bits, they certainly would've done better.

 

IMHO the whole all-in-one design was hindering the 8bits too, a pizza box with detachable keyboard and SLOTS, "official" Atari released PBI/ECI periperals like 80 column video cards and other devices might've helped a lot too... Its tough to say, really the key would've been to do what Apple did and extend the platform's life with a 65816 and better graphics & speed. Let's face it, the 8bit line was 6 years old and hadn't seen any significant improvements over the original 400/800 design, it was long on the tooth, still didn't have a "professional" text mode of 80 columns that was clear enough to see on a monitor, the SIO bus while an excellent solution to creating a universable consumer peripheral port was also hindering the 8bits with lack of high speed, and very expensive intelligent peripherals to connect to it...

 

When you ad the final ingredient to the mix: No advertising, the 8bits were doomed the moment the Tramiels stepped in the door, Warner had already built the casket with its canceling of earlier enhancements and products:

 

the 1200Xl was originally supposed to have an external bus, shot down by management in 82'

 

83' take over of Atari from Kassar to Morgan caused a 30day "hold" on everything and indecision on where to manufacture the 600/800xl's causing Atari to lose the whole 83' Holiday sales season

 

Cancelation of the 1400Xl and 1450xl projects, the 1600XL IBM clone and the CP/M add-on box for the 8bits

 

The open ended contract with Atari and Amiga that allowed Amiga to use Atari's cash to finish their chips and then weasel out of the deal 3 days before Atari was sold, return the cash and keep the chips leaving Atari high and dry with no future chipset for its proposed next generation game console and future PC initiatives. Of course, the Tramiels most likely would've screwed up the use of those new chips anyway, so at least the technology made it out the door through Commodore.

 

Its goes on and on....

 

 

Curt

[+Allan]

IMHO the whole all-in-one design was hindering the 8bits too, a pizza box with detachable keyboard and SLOTS, "official" Atari released PBI/ECI periperals like 80 column video cards and other devices might've helped a lot too...  Its tough to say, really the key would've been to do what Apple did and extend the platform's life with a 65816 and better graphics & speed.   Let's face it, the 8bit line was 6 years old and hadn't seen any significant improvements over the original 400/800 design, it was long on the tooth, still didn't have a "professional" text mode of 80 columns that was clear enough to see on a monitor, the SIO bus while an excellent solution to creating a universable consumer peripheral port was also hindering the 8bits with lack of high speed, and very expensive intelligent peripherals to connect to it...

 

Apple had the same problem with their Apple IIc. It had that all in one design that hindered it's sales inspite of being portable. Apple IIe users were use to the great expansion of the IIe and stayed away from the IIc more than they would have if they could have used their IIe cards in the IIc. Apple finally got it right with the IIGS which had the simplicity of the IIc yet the same (even better) expansion of the IIe. Of course they threw in a 65816 and Mac/Windows like OS to make it the most powerful 6502-compatible computer. (Thank god for the Woz!) They only did two things wrong. 1. Priced it so high that it was really hard to compete with the ST's and Amiga's. And 2. Was never really taken seriously by Steve Jobs who only saw it as competition for the Macintosh.

 

When you ad the final ingredient to the mix: No advertising,  

 

Yup, Economics 101, or probably Economics 100 remedial high-school level course.

 

Allan