mirrorbird (22:35:21)
many screen modes, from "fat" MODE 2 (all colours, wide pixels, 16? 20? chars/line, and eats memory) up to 80 chars/line with no colours, good for text. sound came directly out of the keyboard and was FRICKIN' LOUD. so edu games asked "S=sound, Q=quiet".

mirrorbird (22:33:29)
franz: had 5.25" floppy drive (not very reliable), you could also get software on ROM chip for instant access, i had a wordprocessor chip, & one for synthesised speech, & one for printing bitmaps (of course most 8-bits could only send text printouts).

edlinfan (22:33:24)
It sure sounds similar

edlinfan (22:33:00)
I wonder how Philips SAA1099 compared to the AY besides double channel count

mirrorbird (22:28:47)
i did have one, but it was second-hand. pretty cool. very expandable, very beautifully designed. like how a unix nerd would design a computer.

mirrorbird (22:28:19)
they were expensive so mostly not a 'home' computer unless you were a teacher's kid

mirrorbird (22:27:46)
yes, they were big in schools in the early-mid 80s, because it was designed as an official 'standard'/benchmark computer, for the BBC. (they had TV shows about "learn how to compute")

franz_opa (22:27:11)
did you encounter BBC micros?

mirrorbird (22:26:35)
and funny enough, most other 8-bits actually offered different 'screen modes' (the old tradeoff -- how much spare memory do you need). look at the BBC Micro. so -- blah blah

mirrorbird (22:25:54)
adding more RAM and AY chip was nice but ehhh. we knew by the mid-80s most people wanted games.

The Lyra III part 1

Ziutek (Andrzej Siuda)

mirrorbird

Time Left: 4:19