I’ve loved chiptunes and tracker tunes since I stumbled across scene.org in 02003 and went on a download spree. This paper summarizes the culture’s history.
I’ve loved chiptunes and tracker tunes since I stumbled across scene.org in 02003 and went on a download spree. This paper summarizes the culture’s history.
David Bennahum, 01995:
Thanks to the microprocessor things get so much more powerful so quickly that there is a real fear of not being “backwards compatible”, meaning the files from 01982 should still somehow run in the word-processor from 01982, even if it is 01995. This kind of uncertainty scares people with really big pockets, people who have thousands of employees and can spend thousands on one order. From day one those people were just *not* going to spend money on a company called Apple best known for a machine built in a garage by two hackers, a machine that kids loved because of the video games. We seem to forget those days.
A little bit of history.
In 01981 IBM launched its first personal computer, the aptly named Personal Computer. Back then there was only one kind of personal computer — the video game machine. You had three choices: Atari, Apple and Commodore. Weirdoes who liked monochrome bought TRS-80s (aka the “trash eighty”) from Radio Shack with an audio-cassette tape drive. In this kind of universe, you’re Apple and you’re thinking “how are we going to convince companies that a personal computer belongs in their offices?” The answer is, you’re not. No way. Not Apple. Not Atari. Not anyone but IBM is ever going to convince corporate America to buy this thing called a PC. So Apple, rightfully, walked away from a market they never were a contender in; and from 01981 to 01994 the office market drove the expansion of personal computer industry.
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The Pippin is part of a project with Bandai, a Japanese game company known for its effluvium of Saturday morning cartoons, video games, and other brain candy for kids. The logic goes like this. As computers become household commodities, like consumer electronics, Apple stands heads above the other PC makers as the only one with any concept of design, marketing and the shopper’s impulse — the kind of stuff Walkmen, Swatches and GameBoys are made of. With the increasing popularity of the Internet, the demand for cheap household computers will dovetail nicely with the demand for ever more immersive video-game machines. Who else but Apple has the skill to enter this market? Who? If Apple is lucky they will forge an alliance with Sony and build these $300 hybrid PC/video-game/Internet gateways together. Could you imagine how many they would sell at Christmas? Tons.
