Atari ST sound is not even as good as the sound on the expanded Elektor TV Games Computer from 1979, which had two of these chips (plus various other sound hardware).
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Then you get a much much better sound than the one you get with the small crappy buzzer. And then you see that the sound is cristal crisp compared to the one the ST outputs.... |
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My Turrican project on MSX1 (Z80 + AY) https://youtu.be/b8RS28GZD7s |
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I got the CPC664 with monochrome (green) monitor, because I needed the higher resolution for programming. Later on I bought a Microvetic RGB monitor which had higher resolution than Amstrad's color monitor (which used a TV tube with coarse 0.43mm dot pitch). To avoid having to keep using the monochrome monitor just for the power supply I built my own PSU for the computer. Quote:
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I'm pretty sure they were screwed over at the last minute and the AY was available. It happens.
AMY was the chip that came to mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_AMY |
I don't think Atari ever planned to put the AMY chip in the ST.
The YM2149 is a shit sound chip for sure, a real chump's Colecovision type noise. It was shit for the £199.99 Amstrad CPC in 1984 never mind a £750 16bit Computer in 1985. YM2151 or a single DAC like the Mac, the YM2149 is the reason ST sales never lasted long. I played Atari 8bit games all the time and had a C64 myself before I got an ST, the sound was the biggest problem for people who had a decent sounding 8bit (not spectrum/amstrad wank sound). Wiring up a sound chip with a single global volume control to Left/Right/Both IS a spastic move too. It's still a shit sound and with only 3 channels you're not going to be making anything brilliant with those shit square waves with a single volume level to control all 3. The Amiga has separate volume controls, the Archimedes has software left/right panning 8bit(?) value too on top. Even wiring up the 3 channels of the SID to left/right/both is still a dumb idea, you need individual volume control for each channel if you want stereo sound to be useful, otherwise it's just a gimmick for clueless idiots to argue about with me :) Good example. ST International Karate (not IK+) may look better on the ST but it sounded like a naff 8bit console vs the Atari 800/C64 Hubbard tune/SFX. That's what it was like owning an ST in 1986 before Commodore got around to releasing a PAL Amiga 1000 in the UK. |
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The problem is that you come here only for the technical aspects of the machine, but those were not really relevant. The design goal of the ST was to get a competitor of the Mac available as fast as possible, and as cheap as possible. Thus, they needed something "that made some sound in some way", and that's it. It was a business decision to go for industry standard parts, cheaply available in volume, easy to integrate.
The Amiga was designed by technical freaks using a design driven by technology, and their startup run out of money exactly because of that - the business aspect was ignored when designing it. They just had the luck (or fortune) of being bought in time by one of the big players of the time. |
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But that doesn't mean the channels themselves couldn't have independent volume control. Quote:
One advantage of using a popular 'standard' chip was that its operation was well understood and there was plenty of music already produced for it. Thousands of songs have been produced for the AY/YM in the 'standard' PT3 format which doesn't require emulating the CPU to play them. Some of them are very good, especially when played on a good stereo system. |
I, for one, and I know I'm in the minority here, I loved the YM2149/AY-3-8910 sound and usually prefered it to SID, which I've always found to be "too noisy".
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Case in point, there are far better ways to play music under DOS than adlib/software synth. But software synth is what I had all my (DOS-using) life so that is the music output I prefer even emulated today. |
I'm still not sure which black magic makes the (rather short and repetitive) Xenon 2 intro possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKM3TSLXh4g
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You have to send pulses with volume registers. It just takes a table lookup to convert one 8-bit sample into 3x 4-bit volumes. |
You explain that as if it is child's play. But I'm sticking with TCD's "black magic" despite of it :)
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Although I'm not sure why Atari couldn't find a way to shoehorn the POKEY in there. |
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Fun note; while the Amiga had better sound from the beginning, Commodore sat on their asses with it (for the most part true with the rest of the Amiga), whereas Atari improved theirs with the STe/TT and then went on to make the Falcon which has amazing sound capabilities. |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1EKjg43MIQ Quote:
The Amiga was a so great improvement for my ears. I must add, the Amiga stereo output "forced" me to adapt and so find a cable and use the family record player to have a stereo output. So if it's here, we found a way to use it. So to say you have to build a mono computer because TV are mono is half of the equation. |
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This surprises me. There is nothing the AY could do the SID couldn't. The SID does have 3 rectangular voices, same as AY, and it had ADSR control, same as AY (actually, better than AY, as there is more control on the hull curve). In the addition, SID as triangle and sawtooth output, and filters, all things the AY did not have. Thus, it should be relatively easy to emulate AY output on the SID. Maybe the actual analog signal quality wasn't all that good for the SID? But remember, the AY is a much simpler device. |
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But the ST has enough cpu power to "push" the sound chip. It can use fast effects on volume and period, with relatively complex players. The machine also has a lot more memory. Some Hippel tunes even used emulation of SID effects... |
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