Quote:
Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT
Cost cutting.
They did similar stupid things with the STe, giving it a 4096 colour pallete but then keeping the same three screen modes which really wouldn't showcase those extra colours without TIMER-B reload tricks.
Should have at least allowed the STe to have a native 32 colour mode, its like they saw a spec sheet for the Amiga but only read the first word of each spec without looking at the details.
Same problem with the improved sound on the STe, Amiga had 4 independent volumes for each channel, STe had one, which is why samples appear cut off on STe but fade out nicely on Amiga.
Cost cutting and without considering what those cuts would affect, because each of their machines just seemed to be reacting to what Commodore were doing and not having an actual design ethos of their own.
|
Id really love to hear some engineer that worked on the Falcon, explaining some of those design decisions. ;-)
I always thought the 16bit bus was due to its 1040 legacy. Looking at all component choices 16bit data bus feels like a pretty bad cost-saver.
The first ”Falcon” prototype was a 1040STE with a ”Sparrow” card featuring the 030, math copro and the DSP.
If it was designed from the ground up, its difficult to imagine that the data bus is what they would focus on in the cost cutting. They could have chosen 020 instead of full 030, low density floppy, no external scsi connector etc..
I guess you could use cheaper memory, but you only got 1MB and getting extra was already expensive anyway so that logic ”doesnt fly..”