Posted By
MMS
on 2011-11-07
17:08:09
 |  Re: CBM engineer Bil Herd - virtual guest
I would formulate that question in an different way way, as V364 had an expensive toy the speech synthetizer, like this:
1) V364housing.
if Commodore already had the plastic mould tools for V364 (pretty expensive thing...), why did not put the Plus/4 with the 3+1 professional application into that serious looking housing? It looks more professional computer, that was the aim of Plus/4, while C116 planned to fight with Spectrum, and C16 to became VIC-20 follower? The BOM cost diifference would be minimal, but may help selling the Plus/4 at the higher price tag as serious PC.
2) Black color.
As a graphician, I was always wondered, why it was decided to use 8 same shades for Black color? For white the 8 shades are just great, some kind of top among 8bit computers, but further 8 shades would be just brilliant, would make picture digitalization a dream, and kind of world record. I just do not see the point of 8 sames shades (everything is there, even the necessary bits), expect that the ZX Spectrum approach was the same...
3) SOUND
VIC-20 had 3 independent sound generator + 1 noise. Plus/4 tried to be sold in different books as 2 + 1 noise (I mean three channels ), but it is misleading, it has only two.
Understanding, that Plus/4 could not afford the expensive SID chip, and TED is limited in registers (but still some are unused), just curious: was there any plan to use at least a limited waveform selection per channel (square, sawtooth, just eg 2-2 bits per channel)? In some waveform tests it shows how big difference it makes, even without ADSR.
As of VIC-20 had challenges with four channels square+noise to produce nice music, it is really hard to create nice music with two channels square+noise on Plus/4 (although some genius guys succeeded).
Or it was really out of focus due to business applications. But what about then C116 and C16?
4) Special connectors
PSU Initially there were Plus/4 computers with round PSU connector, made possible touse with C64 power brick. later turned to square, made psu backups almost impossible. Why?it just increased diversity.
Joystick: understanding that Atari 2600 type connectors were generated more interferences, why it was decided to use that round DIN, while for everyone else (even for C128) old was OK, and even more no adapter provided by Commodore itself in the box?
User Port: why layout is different from C64 User port? All available RS232 and Centronics adaptors made for C64 by other companies became useless at once. It was not logical at all in 1984, having all this on the shelves. Geocable came much later, but would be used by Plus/4 at once without that layout difference.
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