REQUEST: Atari-Tan / ST-Tan

VonDaab · March 18, 2009, 11:27:22 PM

One is for sure. ATARI ST-tan HAS to have a bad singing voice. It's a must.

Smokey · March 19, 2009, 05:10:39 AM

Quote from: "MagikGimp"5) Boooooobs =D

Eeehm, no... because the kind of memory the Atari ST uses is the same size as a modern-day CPU-cache... And rule is, the less memory, the less boobs...

And why the bad voice?

Aurora Borealis · March 19, 2009, 08:32:36 AM

RAM and breast size for OS-tans is relative. For example, the Apple Lisa had 1 MB of RAM... back in 1983! That was huge amount back then so Lisa-tan is portrayed as "well-endowed". The Amiga and Atari ST also had a lot of RAM back in their days.

On the other hand, if the "RAM and breast size" rule were absolute, we'd start seeing flat XP-tans within a few years!

Of course there is some artistic license and that rule is not set in stone. Take for example, the 98-tans and ME-tan who are usually flat as a board despite having higher requirements than 95.

I don't think ST-tan should have a bad singing voice- I think I read somewhere that the ST had very good sound capabilities! After all, Amiga-tan (who is a great singer) was one of her competitors!

Smokey · March 19, 2009, 08:56:16 AM

I thought the ST wasn't exactly swimming in RAM, even for those days...

MagikGimp · March 19, 2009, 10:41:17 AM

Interesting stuff guys, I didn't know about the boobs to RAM ratio, lol made me nerd-laugh though. The Amiga and ST had around the same amount of RAM each at the time and both could be upgraded. The usual for the average gamer was 1MB; compare that to 1GB being small today... ;013
Give her a boob job but nothing approaching XP-Tan sized.

As for her voice, I'm at a split decision. It's all down to personal taste as to whether you love or hate the ST's Yamaha bleeps (I personally can't get enough) but she was loved by musicians as she was cheap and came with MIDI ports included built-in straight out of the box and what you have to understand about MIDI is it's not how those tiny files sound on your PC but what they're played through. Remember polyphonic ring-tones? They're just MIDI files (bet you wished you hadn't paid for them now eh?) and they sound pretty good as your phone had a better synthesiser chip than your PC's software. Back in the 80s & 90s the MIDI technology was essentially the same but the music was recorded directly from the synths; a similar thing is in effect today it's just more advanced. So yeah, you could very quickly and easily hook up your kit to your ST, boot up your copy of Cubase or whatever and lay that track or something like that... You can see it in action in
this episode of Bad Influence!, a British video game show for kids back then. There's another episode from the last series too where they cover the same ground but the poor ST gets thrown away for having crappy games; shame on them!
I think ST-Tan should have a good voice but sing cheesy pop numbers the kind of which make no. 1 but everyone hates. Perhaps she wins Pap Idol or something.

Smokey · March 19, 2009, 11:23:57 AM

True full midi support on a system is loved by musicians...

VonDaab · March 19, 2009, 11:28:42 AM

Hmm... I dont really know why I posted that statement, as it was solely a case of personal taste. I blame the fact that it was morning and I wasnt really awake...

But yeah, I've stumbled upon some really, really bad Atari tunes. Ones that made you want to stab yourself in the ears so you dont need to hear it ever again.

Smokey · March 19, 2009, 11:37:29 AM

Isn't that the case with alot of 70s and 80s stuff? ^_^

Red-Machine · March 19, 2009, 11:38:38 AM

If I remember rightly, the Atari ST had the AY-3-8910, the same sound chip that was in the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Now, I don't have the slightest clue WHY they used it, as it was obsolete by that time and the ST was designed to compete with Commodore's Amiga which had a FAR superior sound chip and graphics capabilities. I honestly don't know why they bothered.

Tramiel wanted to destroy Commodore, so he had to scramble to come up with something to beat the new Amiga and he designed the Atari ST. He was doomed from the start.

VonDaab · March 19, 2009, 11:53:44 AM

Quote from: "Smokey"Isn't that the case with alot of 70s and 80s stuff? ^_^

In videogame music?
No no no. You got it all wrong. Chiptunes can be awesome. Its just Atari ones that doesnt sound right.

Yamaha chip? No clue. only thing I know about that is that the Sega MD used one, thus all MD games had the same electronic "bonking" sound in the music.

If you really listen to samples used in Atari tunes, you can hear that they are lot more compressed and distorted than the Amigas.

Smokey · March 19, 2009, 01:10:21 PM

I actually meant 70s and 80s stuff in general... ^_^

MagikGimp · March 19, 2009, 04:34:18 PM

To elaborate more on my opinion of the ST's sound chip (and to continue even further off topic, sorry Aurora!) it is almost the same as the Specky's (and indeed a few other older machines too) but it sounds different to the point where I can't listen to too much music from those older machines but I can with the ST's. It's probably a nostalgia thing (my first computer was an ST) but I stick to my guns that I enjoy the sound. I could give you a ton of examples too but I digress; I think we should concentrate on ST-Tan, that is why I started this thread after all.

PS: This is from Wikipedia: "Although the chip wasn't designed to handle raw PCM data (digital samples), the effect could be simulated. The chip used a simple OR based mixing function for combining noise and tone on its three channels and could be persuaded to produce a level non-zero wave. By altering the volume this level wave could be shaped into a waveform. Obviously, this involved more CPU usage than chips designed for this purpose (such as the MOS Technology 8364 "Paula" as used in the Commodore Amiga), but it was nevertheless a technique widely used on platforms such as the Atari ST to play sampled music, and on the Amstrad CPC to play short audio samples, in some games."
This backs up the fact that the ST-Tan can do what the Amiga-Tan can too, just not as well. Atari used this chip as it was cheaper and besides it's not even used for MIDI if you use a synthesiser or sequencer or whatever (I'm not an expert).

Chocofreak13 · March 19, 2009, 04:39:04 PM

i HATE midi files!!! >__< but then, there are ALOT of popular songs i hate too, so i guess the cheesy pop songs idea works out well, at least for me.

all this talk of soundchips reminds me of soundboards, which reminds me of alienware.

there should be an alienware-tan!!! and she should be BADASS!!!

NejinOniwa · March 19, 2009, 04:40:58 PM

urge to rage on OT...urge to rage...urge to rage...urge to rage...

MagikGimp · March 19, 2009, 04:42:50 PM

Quote from: "NejinOniwa"urge to rage on OT...urge to rage...urge to rage...urge to rage...

OT?