Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/06/27/new-stars-wars-trailer-remade.html
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I grew up with an Apple II. I had a vested interest in promoting the Apple II-- sort of. (I wanted games to continue to come out for the Apple II, but a ten your old with opinions doesn’t have a lot of pull)
But on a technical level, there were systems with better resolution,and better color and better sprites. And better sound.
(I’m not sure what was going on in the “workstation” market at that time, but those were dozens of times more expensive. http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1984-05.pdf )
By 1985, the state of the art was the Amiga, and the Apple II didn’t even come close.
As for sound, this was considered advanced.
If you were aiming for monochrome (so as to avoid the intricacies of Hi-Res color, though the Apple IIc had double hires., the mac was always a possibility. It did come out in 1984…)
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Yea, I had the Amiga in '85 – my first computer – and it was pretty hot…
…except… for the sound.
Commedore was advertising the Amiga with “professional quality sound,” but that was BS. In '85 professional quality sound (via the CD) was 16 bit. The Amiga had 8 bit sound.
Amigas were used a lot in laser light shows - the stereo sound was anything the programmer wanted it to be (as opposed to clicks for the apple, synthesized sounds for many other systems), so it was used to drive the x and y axis mirrors that pointed the laser. So, professional quality sound, but used by laser light show professionals 
Also, the Fairlight CMI II synthesizer – cutting edge at the time – used 8 bit samples.
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That’s a pretty good bit of work.
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I only wish they’d done a sound-chip score to match. Tons of work!!
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When I saw that Fairlight link I immediately thought of Peter Gabriel…
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This would have been 1000% better if they had created a version of the trailer’s soundtrack on the Apple II as well. Using the II’s soundchip for the music, and a vintage voice synthesizer for the spoken words.
As it is, this retro trailer just feels half-hearted and unfinished.
Eta: @nungesser got there first. GMTA!
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the iigs, on the other hand, was known for its sound (still 8 bit, though). It was also known as a minority platform…
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