Posted By
MMS
on 2016-09-18
18:54:59
 |  Re: Is the Plus/4 more advanced then the 64?
actually, TED would have been enough for music with few modifications (though they planner to make it as a competitor of ZX Spectrum, and two chasnnnels are more than one  ). And it was never planned to be a playing computer, but more an educational tool, though I do not know why they did not provide anything mode educational than 3+1.
If you see the list below, you can see, that it would not make the TED IC much more advanced, but only a little more complex with better useability.
SOUND
-They would implement 4 simple channels channels of music, not two.
It is visible, that even with 3 SID channels you need tricks if you want to make MUSIC.
With that only step, the SID FRQ emulation would become much more easy, now a lot fo trick required in rastertime to play a 3 channle music on 2 channels.
-Provide lower frequencies than the current 110Hz. That's ridiculous, no bass is possible
-Add next to the (most complex) white noise the sawtooth, triangle and sinewave form.
Even without any advanced ADSR programming the SID has (and makes the IC complex), they could make defintive difference to square waves we currently have in the atmosphere of music. (softer and harsher part would better separate).
-The 4 channels should have been organized in two stereo channels output, with independent 8-8 bit volume register.
We know, how much it improves the quality of the digi playback, if the output is not 3, 4 or 5 bit resolution, but 8 bit. Though at that time the Amiga was still in development (with 4 independetn 8bit D/A channel), 2 independent 8 bit volume could make a real difference in music possibilities, please check Soundblaster, MOD playback, and all the others. It is just simple D/As, with resistor ladders within the IC. Actually you do not need LOOONG and BIG samples. Some very short few byte samples can make a very good music, see chip mod music, sometimes only 12-20KB size.
GFX:
-Sprite: the holy grail
Actually, if instead of 2 fix color and 2 variable color they would use the 2KB betweeen $1000 and $1800. It could be a new gfx mode: they could have TWO color maps, and that would result 4 variable color in EACH 8x8 matrix, and with the rich color palette in the multicolor of would be just fantastic. But then there is no real background color, like in case of HIRES mode.
The C64 gfx conversion would be a kid's play (even now it is not so complex, but still some limitations), and from SW-sprite point of view the "front" or "rear" color map could be used to simulate sprites.
But this GFX mode would mean, that C16 would have never born in this form, only with 32KB RAM, as after switching to GFX mode even that small 2KB for BASIC would not exist at all.
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