14 Jan
2014
14 Jan
'14
10:19 a.m.
On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 06:53:06PM +0000, Liam Proven wrote:
[...]
IMHO, the QL done right - a 68000 home computer, built
to a strict, tight
budget, using COTS parts and a largely COTS software stack - was the Atari
ST. The standard 8-bit sound chip, a standard PC floppy controller, (I
believe) PC-derived graphics chips etc. - and it was still nearly twice the
price of the QL at launch.
Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST#Technical_specifications
According to that page, about half of the chips were custom, including the
video hardware. Why they bothered building custom hardware for such pedestrian
video when there was surely suitable COTS parts is anybody's guess.
The ST's floppy controller is the COTS WD-1772, and that series of controllers
was extremely popular in a lot of 8 bit machines. The 1770 is a familiar number
to me as being the one they had to bodge into the BBC Micro because supplies of
the controller it was designed to use had dried up. The PC uses the 8272A or
compatible, and the less said about that dog's breakfast, the better. ISTR that
disks written on the two controllers are slightly incompatible with each other,
but mercifully I have recycled those particular neurons. (And it pales into
insignificance compared to trying to read *Amiga* disks.)
Its sound was basically the Yamaha AY-3, a chip that as pretty impressive for
its time and again appeard on many eight bit machines such as the BBC Micro
(again) and newer ZX Spectrums. Sadly, the chip's time was the early-to-mid
1980s, rather than 1989-1990 when the ST was really starting to gain traction
in the UK.