Lets have a heated debate... (Atari vs Enterprise vs C64)

[mal7921]

I've been mulling over this idea for a while and thought about submitting an article for it, but the more I though about it, the more I realised this had to be a discussion to get other people's opinions.

So what am I on about?

Simple, which is the best soundchip in home computers?

As an ST user, you would think my bias would be towards the YM chip and its varients that cover the MSX, the Spectrum 128K/Plus 2/Plus 3 and the Amstrad CPC series, but lets be honest here, as good a chip as the YM series is, it is a little weak in the face of the competition. Ok, it has 3 independent sound channels plus a noise channel, and can pack a punch with some sounds, but compared to even Atari's own Pokey chip from the 8 bit line, the YM's lack a little something.

Pokey was a 4 channel chip which hid inside the XL and XE series of 8 bit computers, in fact the 130XE added pseudo stereo sound to the humble 8 bit line, something the 16 bit line of ST's would not get until 3 years later with the STe. Its 4 voices were independently programmable and there was a decent selection of waveforms, so long as you knew how to get at the hardware. Pokey is in many ways a better chip than the one the ST was blessed with, though pokey did have some weaknesses. It can be quite intensive to program, at least to get the best out of it, and internally it was quite complex leading to different batches of chip having slightly different sonic qualities. This was not the only sound chip to suffer in this way...

Commodore's SID chip had issues with Commodore tinkering with the design throughout its production cycle. This is the chip often regarded by many as THE soundchip of the home computer generation. 3 channels of pure synthesis with programmable waveforms, filters and features that you would expect to find on professional synthesizers. In fact, a number of professional synthesizers were built around this chip, but to get the best sound, specific batches had to be used and ideally, the chip from the C64C (The later all cream coloured computers) should be avoided. Having said that, all generations of the chip have the same powerful synthesis engine and filter. In fact the designer of the chip went on to start Ensonique who are one of America's most successful synthesizer companies.

Now, you may well have noticed an omission from these soundchips, and I'm going to correct this now.

The Enterprise home computer had quite a difficult start, delayed launch, finally launching as the home computer market saturated and suffering the indignity of being nicknamed the Flan (It was originally to be called Elan). It did have an ace up its sleeve though in that it had a custom designed sound subsystem that could be re-programmed on the fly. If you used less complex synthesis methods, you could have 4 voices, however if you wanted the ultimate sound, you could sacrifice voices and improve the synthesis engine. In truth, it was the first completely programmable sound system which could be recognised as a Digital Signal Processor, years before the Atari Falcon was even thought of. Even today, many of todays professional synthesizers can't come close the complexity of sound generation the Enterprise was potentially capable of creating.

So why have I not mentioned the Amiga's Paula chip? Well, for me that is not a soundchip, it's 4 sample playback devices in a package. It does not have synthesis capability, without samples held in RAM it has no real sound ability at all, which is why I'm going to say no more about them.

For me, either the SID chip or the Enterprise sound subsystem have to be the best soundchips, with the Enterprise just winning on sheer ability alone.

Now dear readers, it's over to you...

[Atari Music Network]

Hi Malcolm!

Until now, I've never even heard of the Enterprise 64/128. This may be true for others too, so here's some basic Enterprise Home Computer Information

Can you please tell us more about this computer's sound capabilities? Are there any internet audio/video examples you can attach here (using the "Embedded_URL" and "YouTube" buttons provided)

You also make a pretty strong statement: "many of today's professional synthesizers can't come close the complexity of sound generation the Enterprise was potentially capable of creating.'. I want to explore this further. Let me scour Facebook and see what others can contribute/argue/debate/threaten our lives with in an all-out Geek war!

[factor6]

Atari 130XE doesn't have two POKEYs. None of 8-bit Atari line has. The 2 POKEY is a homebrew modification which came in the 90's from Poland and is available for both the XE and the older XL line.

I don't think AY/YM is weak. Comparing with POKEY, it's definitely better. Remember that POKEY's sound is limited to 3,5 octaves so 4 channel musics sound often false. This can be overtaken by joining 2 channels together to get full frequency scale, which is usable for bass tones, for example. So you get 1 channel with about 7 octaves range and 2 remaining limited 'normal' channels. With stereo mod such a music has not 8, but only 6 channels (the channel joining is usually done on both POKEYs).

And what about AY in Amstrad CPC Plus computers... it's boosted by a DMA processor so its capability is bigger than in other AY based machines.

[Atari Music Network]

Are there any audio/video samples we can hear Factor 6?

[goonzy]

Is there a tech spec sheet for the sound / IO coprocessor in this machine (I've seen on Emulator pages it was called Dave but not much more)

Cheers

[mal7921]

Oops, having only ever had the console version of the 65XE, I was relying on an external source for the 130XE info.

A little further digging shows the Enterprise has a basic sound structure of 3 voices plus noise, however the sound generators were programmable and if you were pretty good, splittable to double sources or stackable for thicker sound.

However, many Enterprise/Elan machines were never sold in the UK, so they were shipped into European markets. The machine was truely the Amiga of the 8 bit generation, but with a proper soundchip and not a set of sample players in a DIL package.

[atarisince1989]

I have found one video of a tracker software running on an Enterprise 128... or so they say

[youtube][/youtube]

Also a review
[youtube][/youtube]

[mal7921]

Does no one else have an opinion on which soundchip they think is the best?

[atarisince1989]

Does no one else have an opinion on which soundchip they think is the best?

To be honest, I never heard of this computer before you bring the topic (which I think is very interesting), but I've been reading lots of different websites since then, and everywhere they highlight the good sound and the amount of connection ports it had.

Seems to me that it just came in the wrong time, and had to compete with the Amstrad CPC, which was cheaper and had monitor and FDD included in the price.

A part from this, a not been able to use one... I cannot really say too much.

[mal7921]

The sheer irony is that the CPC series launched after the Enterprise, but the CPC had the backing of Amstrad and came with a monitor plus games.

Also by the time the Enterprise launched, people assumed it was never going to arrive as it had been announced, advertised, delayed, re-announced, re-advertised, delayed, renamed, re-announced and re-advertised.

By the time it did launch, many programs were just simple ports from other machines around at the time, and other than a graphical makeover, never showed off what the machine could really do.

Still, there must be some enthusiasts in Hungary who pushed the limits of this underestimated machine...

[atarisince1989]

The sheer irony is that the CPC series launched after the Enterprise, but the CPC had the backing of Amstrad and came with a monitor plus games.

That's not what Wikipedia and old-computers.com says Amstrad CPC 464 was released in 1984, and Enterprise 64, though was announced in September 1983, was not released until 1985.

Also by the time the Enterprise launched, people assumed it was never going to arrive as it had been announced, advertised, delayed, re-announced, re-advertised, delayed, renamed, re-announced and re-advertised.

Yes, I read somewhere a post from a guy that won one 64 and had to wait for a year to receive it, and by the time the guy was heavily using the Acorn BBC.

Still, there must be some enthusiasts in Hungary who pushed the limits of this underestimated machine...

Yes, apparently 20,000 units were shipped to Hungary, and there hit the market.

[mal7921]

Thanks to Tobias Jansson on the Facebook group page, we have a new contender for best soundchip, a custom chip by Konami for their MSX titles which had 5 channels and some basic wave sequencing abilities.

More info at Wikipedia, but if someone can find an online example of this chip in action, we would be interested in hearing it.