|
Post by spenoza on Oct 24, 2018 2:14:42 GMT
If you think about it, almost every bit of technology and hardware design in the PC Engine is an evolution of stuff already out there. Nothing the PCE did was really new in the landscape of console hardware. It was the same thing that was already out there, just MORE of it. Well, apart from the fact that the "evolution" that you are describing applies to every generation of consumer gaming technology, you are also ignoring the fact that the NEC's vision for the PCE was to sell the new CD-ROM technology, which was revolutionary at the time (and damned expensive). Ah, I meant from the perspective of the core Hudson-designed chipset. You are correct that NEC was indeed looking at CD technology as a comparatively revolutionary step forward, but I don't think Hudson necessarily had that in mind, at least not until after partnering with NEC. I wonder if that was a factor in pairing with NEC rather than another manufacturer. I am also, admittedly, splitting hairs, by thinking of little "e" evolutionary vs big "E" Evolutionary. By that I mean the Genesis was an attempt to "bring the arcades home" and shared a lot of technology with Sega's arcade hardware at the time and the Super NES incorporated technology like the custom Sony SPC and Mode 7. In that sense, one could perhaps argue Hudson's hardware aims were comparatively humble, though that could also be an attempt to retroactively impose a particular viewpoint on their design. Technology does indeed change quite rapidly, as you point out below. It is hard to know what their design calculus was. I suspect they were going for a combination of cheap and good enough, ... You have to understand that every consumer-product design is governed by considerations of "cheap enough and good enough". You also have to look at the massive technological leaps that were being made in the 1980s that effected the calculations of what manufacters could produce, and at what price-points. RAM size and speed and price were critical design factors. RAM speed itself was pretty darned slow in the early 1980s, getting faster and faster as the decade progressed. Very good point. But I wonder if partnering with NEC changed some of their cost vs performance calculations at all. Nintendo and Sega took sole responsibility for their hardware, but Hudson, despite managing to design an elegant set of core chips, decided not to venture into hardware without a named partner. I appreciate the detailed explanation of changes in RAM sizes, speed, and pricing. That really does help add some necessary detail. There has been discussion that it appears the PC Engine was originally designed for 32KiB of RAM instead of 8KiB. I wonder if they were expecting prices to fall more than they did, or if there was some other reason they had to scrap that plan.
|
|
|
Post by elmer on Oct 25, 2018 3:47:16 GMT
Ah, I meant from the perspective of the core Hudson-designed chipset. You are correct that NEC was indeed looking at CD technology as a comparatively revolutionary step forward, but I don't think Hudson necessarily had that in mind, at least not until after partnering with NEC. I wonder if that was a factor in pairing with NEC rather than another manufacturer. You're right ... I don't believe that Hudson really had CD-ROM technology in mind when they initially designed the PCE. There has been discussion that it appears the PC Engine was originally designed for 32KiB of RAM instead of 8KiB. I wonder if they were expecting prices to fall more than they did, or if there was some other reason they had to scrap that plan. The PCE's CPU was definitely designed for 32KBytes of RAM ... the chip select that is built into the chip for accessing the work RAM is mapped to the whole 32KByte region of banks $F8-$FB (it is documented in the original PCE hardware docs). That's why it was so easy to put 32KB of RAM on the SuperGrafx, and still use the same CPU with no changes. I don't know if we'll ever know exactly what happened to cause the base PCE to ship with only 8KB RAM, but I can speculate that with the dramatically fluctuatuing prices of 256Kbit RAM in 1985/1986/1987, that someone decided to cut costs. Perhaps it finally came down to a choice of dropping down to 8KB of main RAM or instead running slower (i.e. cheaper) VRAM that would have made programming games for the machine much harder, and have hurt our ability to update dynamic tiles and upload new graphic animations ... but that is just complete speculation.
|
|
|
Post by Mathius on Oct 25, 2018 4:12:09 GMT
Something had been nagging at me after reading talk here that Hudson didn't originally envision the PCE possibly gaining a CD-ROM later on down the road. I had read something somewhere before that countered that theory, but couldn't recall exactly where. Tonight I remembered. It was Magweasel's unfinished chronology of the history of the Engine, where he did luckily finish up his CD-ROM portions using excerpts of interviews by former Hudson staff. I'm not saying that this is factual, but it may shed some light on the poorly documented history of the 'Engine.
|
|
|
Post by elmer on Oct 25, 2018 4:42:52 GMT
I had read something somewhere before that countered that theory, but couldn't recall exactly where. Tonight I remembered. Excellent, thank you so much for the information and the link, I absolutely love learning something new about my favorite machine!!! I had thought it was NEC that pushed the CD-ROM aspect to Hudson, and not the other way around. It's good to know what really happened, and that it actually was Hudon's overall vision after all.
|
|
|
Post by spenoza on Oct 25, 2018 14:52:47 GMT
That's really cool. I read the magweasel stuff but clearly didn't retain enough of it. In that case, if NEC were looking at the technology as well, the partnership would clearly have been a fruitful one.
|
|