26 Jan
2010
26 Jan
'10
1:27 p.m.
When I was a kid, I had an Atari 800, and my best
friend Rob had a
Commodore 64. We'd fight back and forth all the time, but we both
loved showing off our systems to each other. He was always in awe of
the Atari's graphics, and I was always in awe of his C64's audio.
Mind you, I like ANTIC and POKEY, though ANTIC more than POKEY. I have
issues with player/missile graphics, but the palette and graphics modes
more than make up for those, and so do display lists. You can get something
like display lists out of a VIC-II, and if you really work at it a few
extra colours, but you'll bind up the 6510 something fierce for something
that ANTIC gives you for free.
POKEY does have a distinct sound which is in its own way unique and
pleasant, but SID really was unmatched for the time.
I often wondered what it'd be like to build a
small computing with
Atari graphics hardware and Commodore audio hardware. That'd be
neat, eh?
People have already said the Amiga, but I'm not sure if I buy that. Agnus is
clearly ANTIC-inspired, but I don't really see much SID-like about Paula or
Portia. If anything, they act more like POKEY.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Don't be humble ... you're not that great. -- Golda Meir -------------------