The SID chip in the PC...

Sang

Banned
The Commodore 64 had the SID chip, an amazing audio chip, which had good sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JpDOWXS81U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jncdr2uQz_o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjxtAwLO50Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mafip6Am99c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU5amACWohc

The IBM PC had inferior audio capabilities before the 90's, and also inferior graphical capabilities before 1987.
But let's say that the PC had an external SID chip, which can be bought and put into the PC, and several games would support it?
How popular would it get before Adlib and SoundBlaster come along?
Would it seriously alter video game history?
 
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Sang

Banned
Maybe advance PC audio capabilities by a few years, but I don't think it would be a big change.

Torqumada

Actually, I think it would delay the advance in PC audio capabilities, because it would lessen the demand for better audio.
 
this reminds of a case with Atari, Atari had the chance to get the graphic chip design for its ST computer that later ended up in the Commodore Amiga. due to the fact that tramiel (ataris ceo) didn't want to negotiate and not even for a rather small price they lost out. THe Atari withe the amigas better graphics would have produced a much better computer that may have had a better chance against the competition.

(and btw the Atari ST ST set a lot of audio standards in the late 80s especially due to having a midi port)
 
The Amiga wasnt too bad on the audio front.. and i had an external MIDI box for my A1000 .. later had a zoro midi card for my 2000....


However.. PC's just wernt ment for the creative use that the Atari, Amiga and MAC were ment for. Its about the user base. bean counters dont care too much for those things
 

Sang

Banned
However.. PC's just wernt ment for the creative use that the Atari, Amiga and MAC were ment for. Its about the user base. bean counters dont care too much for those things

The key to the PC's long term success was the fact that it had replaceable hardware.
C64 and Amiga were released and stayed the same.
But the PC's hardware advanced. And why could it advance? Because it is replaceable. You can upgrade your PC, but can't upgrade your C64 or Amiga.
 
The key to the PC's long term success was the fact that it had replaceable hardware.
C64 and Amiga were released and stayed the same.
But the PC's hardware advanced. And why could it advance? Because it is replaceable. You can upgrade your PC, but can't upgrade your C64 or Amiga.

actually the amiga was quite upgradable :)

i can throw a ppc card in my 1200 and not swap the whole thing.. also audio and other peripherals...

pc won out because of business software.. IBM, Lotus, Word Perfect, Microsoft.. Amiga .. well it had the Video Toaster and some kick butt graphics software.. It was software and always has been software and marketing that controls the market the PC was an open architecture, while the amiga, atari, and apples were not..
 

Sang

Banned
actually the amiga was quite upgradable :)

i can throw a ppc card in my 1200 and not swap the whole thing.. also audio and other peripherals...

pc won out because of business software.. IBM, Lotus, Word Perfect, Microsoft.. Amiga .. well it had the Video Toaster and some kick butt graphics software.. It was software and always has been software and marketing that controls the market the PC was an open architecture, while the amiga, atari, and apples were not..

Hmmm... interesting.
As far as I know, Amiga suffered from slow CPU, so it couldn't run revolutionary games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, etc.
 
Hmmm... interesting.
As far as I know, Amiga suffered from slow CPU, so it couldn't run revolutionary games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, etc.

?? i run quake and other games on my 1200.. even with an 040.. (actually a 603 PPC chip now)

it was pretty upgradable.. bare in mind i use PC's now.. but it was Amazing what earlier computer platforms could do... especially with little to no memory .. Wish Microsoft and Apple and other vendors would take the same approach and program for efficiency versus here is your operating system on 2 DVD's .. here is your office suite on 2 DVD's .... just saying... :)

I had a CDROM for my A500 back in 86, had a 120 meg SCSI hard Drive and 8 meg of ram :) and an 030 Processor upgrade card! smokin box till i replaced it with my 2000

I loved the Amiga though.. others have fond memories of the platforms they loved and used..
 
I have no opinion other than the first thing I ever bought with my own money was a used Commodore 64. It turned out the SID chip was fucked and it cost me a fortune to have it fixed. Perhaps they could make the SID chips less fragile or something.
 

Perkeo

Banned
The key to the PC's long term success was the fact that it had replaceable hardware.
C64 and Amiga were released and stayed the same.
But the PC's hardware advanced. And why could it advance? Because it is replaceable. You can upgrade your PC, but can't upgrade your C64 or Amiga.

As others have said, the Amiga WAS upgradable. Indeed the Amiga's Zorro II and Zorro III bus systems were way ahead of anything available for the PC at the time. The one thing that broke the Amiga's neck was that it was produced by only one company that simply lacked the money to develop all the upgrades that the users needed. The PC, as a franchise, simply outumbered any competitors, first the Amiga and later the MAC.

I used to own a C128, which proves that I knew nothing about computers at the time. That computer officially holds the world record in waste of good engineering: Two CPU's and to Graphics controllers, all on one single bus, and they actually managed to make this work and even accomplished almost 100% compatibility.

But the game would have changed a lot with some relatively minor differences:

1) 8088 instead of the Z80 as the second CPU (shold not have been a real problem)
2) improved VIC instead of a second display controller (apparently not quite that easy, since they must be a reason why they didn't do it IOTL)
3) offer the SID and the new VIC as a upgrade option to existing PC's

Then the C128 would have opened the door to low cost MS-DOS compatible computing, and the SID would have been the first real sond chip in the PC environment. Commodore would have pioneered the advance of the PC into the home computer marked and set hardware standards.

But that was always the tragedy of Commodore: They built revolutionary machines, but then always screwed up any further develpoment.
 
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