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Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

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Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#21

Post by rbanffy »

rigonkulous wrote: post #11
rbanffy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish they'd crammed a SID chip into the Amiga alongside Paula This is something the Apple IIgs had. It had an extremely capable synthesiser with good graphics and performance capped so not to compete with Macs. It was a weird machine, a sharp contrast with the minimalistic Apple IIs that preceded, over complicated and trying to be too many things at once. For the same reason I prefer the design of the ST o…

I'd love to have a IIgs in my collection these days, its truly the pinnacle computer of its type and era.

It’s not really an 8-bit computer, stuck in a weird place between the //e and the Macs. It kind of is a II, but only in a half hearted way, kind of a new Apple ///, but designed for graphics and sound, and nicer at pretending to be a //e. It’s not even the fastest II - that would be the //c+ - nor the last to be discontinued, which was the Platinum//e.

It’s a nice machine, but I find it uninspired, a bit like the C128, which instead of improving the VIC II, added a VDP with garish RGBi colors. Both look like they tried to check all boxes and, in the end, made computers unable to follow on their immediate ancestors legacy. Both disappointed me because they could be so much more.

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#22

Post by vasac »

JetSetIlly wrote: post #14
bartread wrote: post #8

I never had an Atari ST so wasn't familiar with the details of how its sound chip worked. I did know it was a variant of the AY chip found in the ZX Spectrum +2A, which I did own for a brief period after several years of 48K+ ownership. However, it's only as a result of reading this article that I realised the chip is only capable of generating square waves and noise, whereas I'd been under the impression it had some…

> Well, that and the fact that after the 48K beeper the 128K was never going to sound less than incredible Some of the stuff people do with the 48k beeper is incredible though. Tim Follin's tunes for example are basically treating the beeper like a 1-bit DAC, with amazing results. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T42WuUpBuHE

And there was Wham! The Music Box if you wanted to compose music :).

Here’s how it sounded on the original ZX Spectrum, equipped with only the beeper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNDVJLma-W4

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#23

Post by rbanffy »

Braini wrote: post #13
rbanffy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really wish they'd crammed a SID chip into the Amiga alongside Paula This is something the Apple IIgs had. It had an extremely capable synthesiser with good graphics and performance capped so not to compete with Macs. It was a weird machine, a sharp contrast with the minimalistic Apple IIs that preceded, over complicated and trying to be too many things at once. For the same reason I prefer the design of the ST o…

Important fun fact, this synthesizer was an Ensoniq chip (ES5503 DOC), designed by Bob Yannes, the inventor of the SID chip. The IIGS was actually a cool machine, not very successful unfortunately.

I wish it expanded on the //e hardware rather than becoming something else. I get the II video hardware was pushed to its limits and something better was needed, but the new video processor with an entirely different approach didn’t feel like a II. Fill-mode was cool, but I don’t remember it being used for anything other than demos. A blitter and sprites would have made more sense, as would colored text modes, redefinable character sets…

The sound chip was so capable it contrasted with the rest of the machine.

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#24

Post by EvanAnderson »

rbanffy wrote: post #21
rigonkulous wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to have a IIgs in my collection these days, its truly the pinnacle computer of its type and era.

It’s not really an 8-bit computer, stuck in a weird place between the //e and the Macs. It kind of is a II, but only in a half hearted way, kind of a new Apple ///, but designed for graphics and sound, and nicer at pretending to be a //e. It’s not even the fastest II - that would be the //c+ - nor the last to be discontinued, which was the Platinum//e. It’s a nice machine, but I find it uninspired, a bit like the C12…

I like the comparison to the C128-- I think I'll use that.

I like both my IIgs and C128D. They largely serve the function of running everything the earlier machines in their line run, but neither is very exciting for bringing new capabilities to the line. Both suffered from developers being hamstrung by supporting the older machines because the new machines didn't have major adoption. The new features felt to be mostly unused.

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#25

Post by Braini »

rbanffy wrote: post #21
rigonkulous wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to have a IIgs in my collection these days, its truly the pinnacle computer of its type and era.

It’s not really an 8-bit computer, stuck in a weird place between the //e and the Macs. It kind of is a II, but only in a half hearted way, kind of a new Apple ///, but designed for graphics and sound, and nicer at pretending to be a //e. It’s not even the fastest II - that would be the //c+ - nor the last to be discontinued, which was the Platinum//e. It’s a nice machine, but I find it uninspired, a bit like the C12…

I actually never understood this, the C128 was a strange device (as you say like the IIGS). Was it really because Albert Charpentier left and then nobody was able to do a VicIII until much later (C65)?

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#26

Post by bhaak »

lproven wrote: post #17
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if the Amiga was ahead of its time or the PC was behind its time. AmigaOS was a pre-emptive multitasking OS whilst PCs had to wait for Windows NT/95.

Sort of both. > AmigaOS was a pre-emptive multitasking OS Yes, but without memory protection. > whilst PCs had to wait for Windows NT/95. While Windows 2 on an 8086 could pre-emptively multitask DOS apps, so long as they all fit into 640 kB at once. Windows/386 could do it in extended memory. The innovative thing in W95 was doing it to Win32 apps as well. OS/2 in 1987 or so could multitask OS/2 code on a 286.

>> AmigaOS was a pre-emptive multitasking OS

> Yes, but without memory protection.

That’s why it was so fast. :) Also surprisingly stable all things considered.

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#27

Post by bartread »

vasac wrote: post #22
JetSetIlly wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, that and the fact that after the 48K beeper the 128K was never going to sound less than incredible Some of the stuff people do with the 48k beeper is incredible though. Tim Follin's tunes for example are basically treating the beeper like a 1-bit DAC, with amazing results. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T42WuUpBuHE

And there was Wham! The Music Box if you wanted to compose music :). Here’s how it sounded on the original ZX Spectrum, equipped with only the beeper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNDVJLma-W4

As rudimentary as it is that actually sounds a lot better than I was expecting, and I think as a kid in the 80s I'd probably have been happy with it.

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#28

Post by bartread »

rbanffy wrote: post #9
bartread wrote: post #8

I never had an Atari ST so wasn't familiar with the details of how its sound chip worked. I did know it was a variant of the AY chip found in the ZX Spectrum +2A, which I did own for a brief period after several years of 48K+ ownership. However, it's only as a result of reading this article that I realised the chip is only capable of generating square waves and noise, whereas I'd been under the impression it had some…

> I really wish they'd crammed a SID chip into the Amiga alongside Paula This is something the Apple IIgs had. It had an extremely capable synthesiser with good graphics and performance capped so not to compete with Macs. It was a weird machine, a sharp contrast with the minimalistic Apple IIs that preceded, over complicated and trying to be too many things at once. For the same reason I prefer the design of the ST o…

> Amiga made lots of assumptions about the use that ended up tuning it well to platform games and NTSC video editing, but nothing else.

I think certainly it was used mostly as a games machine by most owners, but then again so was the Atari ST (at least amongst my cohort at school).

As for tuning it well to games and video editing but nothing else... I don't agree.

For a long time an Amiga 500 with 1MB RAM expansion and a 24 pin dot matrix printer was my main and only computer, and I did everything on it: word processing, CAD, music, graphics. It got me through both GCSEs and A-levels: all my coursework was written on it, all my compositions were done with MED and OctaMED, all the code for my maths courseworks was written on it, all the design work for my technology project, every essay, etc., and so it goes on. I was even still using it somewhat at university into the late 1990s as I didn't have the cash for a PC.

You could do a lot with an Amiga, and there was a lot of software available to do all of it, along with plenty of hardware peripherials. The software side of things, well a huge library of applications in every category came within reach for cash strapped users later on when loads of formerly expensive software was being given away on magazine coverdisks. Sadly that also coincided with the decline[0] of the platform.

Of course, I played games as well: who wouldn't?

All of this you could also do on an Atari ST, although I'd argue that the Amiga had the better operating system. Regardless, it was all also basically unthinkable in any really serious sense on (most of) the previous generation of 8-bit machines.

I think people are too quick to write off the 16-bit home machines of the late 80s and early 90s as toys when, in fact, by the standards of the time they were both powerful and affordable general purpose computers.

[0] I won't say death because there's still a hardcore of dedicated users keeping the platform alive, as also for the ST.

Re: Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU

#29

Post by Findecanor »

gblargg wrote: post #7
abanana wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The release of Windows 95 was weird. There were PC users talking about how amazing Microsoft were, to have come up with all the things their marketing people were shouting about, such as pre-emptive multitasking and plug-and-play. Then all the Amiga (and Mac) users, completely underwhelmed, pointing out "we've had all these things for years, how has it taken so long?".

Even Mac OS classic was just cooperative multitasking. Near the end it got some very limited pre-emptive capability, but most only usable to do calculations.

As a Amiga and then Linux and Windows 95 user I remember being flabbergasted over a Mac in 1997 being completely unusable while it was formatting a floppy.
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