h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Argh! Apostrophe abuse! "Tracker's" in the first paragraph would be considerably better off without one...

Also, it seems a bit odd to define the term the article is about in a footnote the first time it's mentioned in the article... surely that should be in the introductory paragraph?

The sentence 'While it isn't technically correct, it was Protracker on the Amiga which started the tracker craze' is a little awkward... does it mean 'While it isn't technically a tracker program'?

Finally... calling the Commodore 64 a 4-bit system might cause confusion, because it was in fact an 8-bit computer... I imagine, however, the article is reffering to 4-bit tracking systems which I believe were available for the C64 and its contempories...

These points aside, not a bad article

26199

The sentence starting "While it isn't technically correct..." is actually responding to the header above it. The *true* beginnings of the Tracker programs come somewhat before the Amiga's Protracker. However, they made so little impact that the author felt they weren't worthy of further explanation.

You are definitely right: the Commodore 64 was an 8-bit computer... however, it only had a 4-bit sound chip - which imposed a severe limitation on the quality of sound it could produce (which was pretty good when it first came out).

The Amiga, with its 4-channel 8-bit sound (so it could play 4 "instruments" or sound waves at once, two through the right speaker, and two through the left) was a significant improvement which allowed for the development of Protracker. (In comparison, most quality synthesizers use 16 bit sound at a minimum). Octamed worked by, through some clever coding, splitting each channel into two - so you would have eight 4-bit sound channels. The sound quality was noticably less, but the mod-sters who played with it could have more "instruments"... definitely a trade off.

I used to listen to mods quite a bit - but, I don't think they compare to what I can currently get on CD...