Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!daveh
From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga outclassed
Message-ID: <10753@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 10 Apr 90 17:22:56 GMT
References: <1980@crash.cts.com> <1990Mar29.080645.20098@ucselx.sdsu.edu> <1958@awdprime.UUCP> <133730@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <1974@awdprime.UUCP> <1671@corpane.UUCP>
Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 40

In article <1671@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:
>robin@sabre.austin.ibm.com (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) writes:
>>>"For the first time, hardware assisted sound generation in a personal

>Amiga was by no means the first to have a sound chip. They were quite
>common in almost all of the 8bit PC's that were out long before Amiga.

Sure; anyone remember the C64?  But, far as I know, the Amiga was the
personal computer out with true digital sound, DMA-driven sound output,
and multichannel stereo.  If you like buzzwords.  The others generally
used a sound effects chip, like the SID in the C64, that could do some
rather simple sounds once set up by the CPU, but nothing similar to
what Amigas are capable of.  That's hardly the first hardware-assisted
sound, but it was a first.

>They probably did invent it, when they released their Apple //.

In a sense, the Apple II was the first personal computer.  Before that,
home computers were really hobby machines, to a degree at least.  So they
may have had the first PC with hardware sound simply because they had
the first PC.  And I believe the early Macs make sound by forcing the 
CPU to pump bytes into a D-A converter -- digital sound for sure, but
very CPU intensive.

>[BTW their Apple // GS has a very awesome sound chip. Much like the amiga's
>but with 16 voices, instead of 4]

That's the old Ensoniq chip, kind of like a VIC chip for audio.  The main
problem with that one is the Apple II GS implementation; limited memory,
all channels tied together, etc.

>John Sparks  | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 2400bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
>sparks@corpane.UUCP |                                     | PH: (502) 968-DISK 
>Help fight continental drift.


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
                    Too much of everything is just enough