Why did the Atari ST designers use such a CRAPPY sound chip?

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

So, the Atari ST even with crappier sound chip and not multitasking Operating System, turned out to be better for MIDI than the multimedia machine Amiga.

Oh, come on, let the ST have this minor victory. It was the only blow it struck against the Amiga in this brutal broadside of cannon fire amongst galleons:

(Amiga) ---------GRAPHICS--------> (ST) BLAMM!!!
(Amiga) ---------SOUND-----------> (ST) KERBOOM!!!
(ST) -------------MIDI--------------> (Amiga) KABABABOOM!!!!

Then again, the ST galleon still sank first.

[amiman99]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

I've linked the video with timestamp to the second song. The first song is irrelevant.
Yes, robinsonb5 is correct. I have received a copyright claim on the first song:

You can get copyright claim on chip music? That's insane.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by amiman99

You can get copyright claim on chip music? That's insane.

Yes, for musical composition.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

So, the Atari ST even with crappier sound chip and not multitasking Operating System, turned out to be better for MIDI than the multimedia machine Amiga.

MC6850 used as UART in Atari ST also doesn't have buffered data (in fact buffered are only 16550 and higher UART's). Paula and MC6850 are quite comparable in terms of CPU demand, Amiga is simply more complex architecture when compared with Atari ST and additionally there is multitasking that may impact with real time MIDI demanding tasks.
but i could imagine reprogramming Amiga timers and do MIDI on pooling way (with disabled multitasking i.e. very high priority)...
Most important factor behind Atari ST was 640x400 non interlaced mode... large amount of data can be displayed at the same time - weird that Commodore didn't offered display with embedded flicker fixer (similar to A2024)...

[phx]

It turned out that the Amiga’s four timer chips were interfering with the serial port. Both the timer chips and the serial hardware were interrupt-driven, and the timer interrupts were a higher priority than the serial interrupts.

Only two of the four timers. The CIA-A timers cause a level-2 interrupt, while CIA-B is level-6, like the serial port of Paula.
EDIT: Wrong. Paula's RBF interrupt is just level-5.

Worse, the Amiga’s serial chip only had a 1-byte buffer — which means that if you didn’t pick up the data before the next byte arrived, the data would be lost.

Indeed.

Bryce was able to mitigate the problem somewhat by having AmigaOS turn off timer chips that weren’t in use. Unfortunately, they couldn’t all be turned off — AmigaOS needed one timer, and Music-X needed another. Turning off two of the four timers greatly reduced the frequency of the bug, but didn’t eliminate it entirely.

Hmm. I cannot remember if the situation under Kickstart 1.x was different, but with later AmigaOS releases I am quite sure that the OS does not use the CIA-B timers.

Originally Posted by drHirudo

So, the Atari ST even with crappier sound chip and not multitasking Operating System, turned out to be better for MIDI than the multimedia machine Amiga.

That was probably the main reason, together with the 1-byte serial buffer. The multitasking on a 7MHz 68000 made MIDI rates like 31250bps unreliable under AmigaOS. There were some optimized serial.devices (8n1.device, baudbandit.device, etc.) which improved the situation a little bit. But usually you would need a much faster CPU for it.

On the other hand, I remember my brother used a serial MIDI interface for composing with his stock A500 during the 90s. Don't know which software he used (Protracker, MED?), but he never complained.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

Anyhow, getting vaguely back on topic, yes the dual-AY songs are quite impressive - and the 8 SID chips example is also really cool. Makes me wonder how many different sound chip recreations could be crowded onto an FPGA and made accessible over MIDI...

But two sound chips don't sound twice as good as a single chip. What I find impressive is how mach can be done with 3 or channels. I listen to an '8 channel' mod and wonder whether it is actually using them because it doesn't sound like it.

Originally Posted by Minuous

you can certainly play back sampled sounds on the IBM PC speaker; eg. the MS-DOS port of World Class Leaderboard plays sampled speech.

...using 1 bit I/O and brute force 100% CPU usage, all interrupts turned off etc. So yeah, a powerful enough PC can do it provided you don't want to do anything else at the same time - which is pretty lame.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But two sound chips don't sound twice as good as a single chip.

Actually one of the funny things about PSG-style synths is that combining channels produces way better instruments. If you have say, a 3-channel synth and use all 3 channels for one instrument it produces something far more complex and interesting than simply modulating the channels individually.

So for instance if you did a 4-instrument track using 4 AYs, one for each instrument, you could wind up with something that does indeed sound 4 times better than a single AY, or even far better than that IMHO. I mean, it's subjective, but the complexity of waveforms you'd get have a real difference that you can almost touch.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I listen to an '8 channel' mod and wonder whether it is actually using them because it doesn't sound like it.

I think that's because most MOD musicians, when offered twice as many channels, will not make eight unique parts of a song, but just copy a 4-channel MOD twice for stereo panning effects instead.

Would make sense, considering how much I've heard them lament the lack of true stereo on Amiga in MODding.

[SSJTrunks69]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I gather the Atari engineers (formerly of the C64, from what I hear) were under the cosh to put together a kick-ass platform for Atari and Jack Tramiel after they lost the Amiga.

So what happened with the choice of sound chip? Did the engineers not have time to design a 16-bit version of the SID, if that was their plan?

Or did they have the MIDI interface in mind from the start? They ran out of time, said "sod the sound chip, let's just shove in an off-the-shelf cheap piece of tat" and end up with what we got, a 16-bit computer that had an 8-bit sound chip but a MIDI interface to make up for it?

That decision may have made Atari huge inroads into the music market, music which they may have thought was more "legitimate" than a bleepy sound chip, but it cost them dearly everywhere else, including home music production using the resources of the machine.

After all, I can't personally stand the sound of the Yamaha chip, and I'm not the only one by far... or am I?

I don't think it's bad. Sure the Amiga has a better sound chip, but the ST still sounds pretty good in my opinion

[no9]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

If you have say, a 3-channel synth and use all 3 channels for one instrument it produces something far more complex and interesting than simply modulating the channels individually.

But still you can make it more interesting than a single voice alone

[ Show youtube player ]

[LeChuck]

Also Atari ST wasn't really engineered by the same team as C64. Granted the father of Atari ST Shiraz Shivji did work on the C64 to some capacity but Bob Yannes who did the SID chip and Al Charpentier who was in charge of the VIC-II graphics chip did not join Atari. And it was really those custom chips that did make C64 a special machine for its time.. just like the Atari 8-bits or the Amiga.

It would have been interesting to see what Atari engoneers could have have done if they had the time and budget to try to truly match Amiga with custom hardware. Falcon was pretty impressive aside of couple of bad foresights and bottlenecks.
That said, Atari ST was a good piece for hardware for mid to late 80's and excellent value for money as much as I prefer the Amiga. They wouldn't have been able to offer a 68000 machine with custom chips at that sort of price so it worked out for them in the early stages of 16-bit "wars"

The demoscene did push that primitive soundchip nicely too.

[Keops/Equinox]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

I listen to an '8 channel' mod and wonder whether it is actually using them because it doesn't sound like it

Then you need to listen to the right tunes. 8 16 or 32 voices, when used properly, the result is amazing.

[ Show youtube player ] (PC, 1993)

[ Show youtube player ] (PC, 1995)

[ Show youtube player ]

[ Show youtube player ]

[ Show youtube player ]

[ Show youtube player ]

[Foebane]

Since you're bringing PC mods and other mod formats into the mix, here's my collection (forgive the naming convention):

AbbeyRoad Radix
AfterHours Elwood
Alone MickRippon
AmberPoison Necros
AscentOfTheCloudEagle Necros
Atlantis Stalker
AuroraZone Turtledove
BeatTheCube! Fearofdark
Blindmind Quasian
ButterflyFlewAway DamacSwallow
CelticWaves Jogeir
ColonialWonderland Fearofdark
CrimsonLotus Quasian
DamaskRose Quasian
DeadLock Elwood
DreamingInGreen Necros
DrowningInSleep Fearofdark
ElusiveImages Quasian
Experience Elwood
FallFromSky Elwood
FeatsOfValor Elwood
ForestOfDreams Scorpik
Homecoming Elwood
InferiorityComplex Elwood
Infinity KhyronNecros
InMyLifeMyMind Wave
IntoTheShadow Elwood
LettingGo Wave
Lizardking'sTheme Lizardking
MafLand Maf
MagentaMagnet Quasian
MountainBreeze Wave
MyFirstConsole Aceman
Mysticism Necros
MyStyles Scorpik
NeutralZone Elwood
NightFusion Fearofdark
OneFineDay Elwood
PoolsOfPoison Wave
RainbowDash RadixXyce
SecondTime Quasian
SecretForestShrine Fearofdark
ShootingStar Elwood
SickOnMonday Elwood
Solace Stalker
Substitutionology Beek
SunshineOfTheMorningSun Area51
Superfly JogeirUnreal
Superglam Radix
SurfingOnASineWave Fearofdark
Suspiria Jogeir
SweetDreams Elwood
TheLastBallad Siren
TheLastSun Jogeir
There'sNothingToLoseAnymore Fearofdark
Touchin'TheChip Jogeir
Tuesday Mellow-D
UmbrellasOfPeru JogeirWalkman
UnknownPhuture Elwood
Winter'sDream Necros

It's just 60, and it's staying that way, but I had 140 once, but I decided to whittle down to my personal favourites.

Anything by Elwood, Quasian and Fearofdark is particularly good.

[Pyromania]

Why did the Atari ST use a crappy-looking OS? That's as bad as the crappy sound chip.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Why did the Atari ST use a crappy-looking OS? That's as bad as the crappy sound chip.

I read somewhere recently that some people PREFER GEM to Workbench!

Sure, enjoy your fixed basic icons and 8.3 filenames, Atarians!

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Anything by Elwood.

+ 1 for Elwood!


Also favourites of mine: Norfair, and very definitely Necros (as per two of Keops' examples) - my all time favourite of his being Riverboat.

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by Foebane

I read somewhere recently that some people PREFER GEM to Workbench!

Sure, enjoy your fixed basic icons and 8.3 filenames, Atarians!

Probably spoken by a true Atari ST user that's never actually used an Amiga of any type.

[Keops/Equinox]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

Why did the Atari ST use a crappy-looking OS? That's as bad as the crappy sound chip.

For the same reason listed above: the cost.

The ST was designed as an affordable home computer, simple to use, no disk required on boot for the OS or anything, no extra cost and just off the shelf components.

The year the ST and the Amiga were released, the latter was almost twice the price of the former.

It took Commodore 2 more years to release the A500 at a more reasonable price, that was still much higher than that of the ST.

[Pyromania]

@Keops/Equinox

It sounds like McDonald's vs a delicious meal from a 5-star restaurant. I'll save up for the better restaurant, thanx!

[Keops/Equinox]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

@Keops/Equinox

It sounds like McDonald's vs a delicious meal from a 5-star restaurant. I'll save up for the better restaurant, thanx!

It's a way to see things when you have the money and can afford the luxury. However, in 1985, it was not the case for most people.

Thanks to that aggressive price, a lot of people could get a new home computer, code, play new games, make music etc.