A "patch" is not a custom sound/sample. It's a set of variables, like existing "osc' selections, envelope attack/decay/sustain, filter setting, pitch, volume levels, etc etc.

Let's just agree to disagree. A minimoog is a minimoog and a Korg M1 is a Korg M1. One can not replace the other, and more features are just that.

Yes it is and patch is used for custom sounds among musicians, you're talking about envelope. Click and read the whole paragraph: https://minirevver.weebly.com/mt-32-music.html

It's not about opinion, it is technically more advanced, plus it can basically reproduce NES music as well with custom patches. You can do this with OPL3 too besides maybe the triangle channel and certain noise sounds.

I'm a musician - I know what a patch is and what a sample is - and they're not the same! A sample is a recording, and the MT-32 can't playback "new" ones. (let's forget about the word 'sound', it's too confusing)
The word 'patch' refers to patch points on analog modular synthesizers (=modulating variables). Sampling basically means recording.

These days there are VST chip emulators... if an MT-32 could've done it perfectly back in the day, there would've been no point in that development.

But I agree on one thing (and I said that in the beginning), for the purpose of emulation or for anything the chip can't do - the MT, or newer Soundblaster, or just any S&S technology is indeed more advanced.

But maybe it's a semantics thing? When I think of "more advanced", I think: it can do the same AND more or better. Is a smartphone more advanced than a CD player? No! They're different. A CD player can't do many of the things a smartphone can do, but a smartphone can't play optical discs.

I"d even argue that the best modern TFT/OLED isn't more advanced than a CRT because it can't perfectly emulate the CRT picture. (and definitely not other way around) They're just different technologies.

^Cool, so am I but it is used to mean that in the chiptune community I visit on discord for example. And in the context of the paragraph you can see it is what they meant (though I forgot to link to the actual vogons thread). Pretty sure almost every game had custom envelopes since it would make for very stiff sounding music without them.

Yeah not perfectly but a sample-based version, theoretically. I am perhaps wrong here but logically it should be able to considering the previous info.

Well ok, goodie. :) Yeah I see what you mean there and fair enough.

It's a bit unrelated to the topic but I think maybe some people will find this story interesting.

In 1984 the Brazilian government - a military dictatorship at the time - approved a law called the National Computing Policy ("Política Nacional de Informática"), which freed Brazilian companies interested in manufacturing computers from respecting patents and IP laws while at the same time creating fiscal barriers to keep foreign companies from being able to sell at a competitive price.

Unfortunately it didn't make the machines super affordable, maybe because the market reserve set up by the law - as well as the Brazilian industrial elite's habit of cartelizing prices - didn't foster a competitive environment.

The Brazilian government also got a lot wrong about computing in general, since there was no similar incentive for software development companies, no microelectronics industry policy, no exports policy and a serious underestimation of the speed in which tech advances and changes.

The result was that Brazilians bought and used clones of ZX-80, ZX-81 e ZX Spectrum, MSX1, Apple II (models ranging from the original to the IIe) and TRS-80 produced locally all the way through the 80s and early 90s, long after these machines were considered obsolete in other markets. The market reserve policy ended in 1992.

The MSX was probably the best gaming machine among these - and certainly the most popular. There is still a fairly active community of MSX enthusiasts in Brazil.

Going even more OT but...

Checking out the history of the MSX (which in the UK was a case of "blink and you'll miss it", so quickly did it vanish) brought up SymbOS - a multitasking, graphical OS capable of handling up to 1MB RAM and 2TiB on disk, running on 8-bit Z-80 computers with, in some cases, very limited graphics.

Whether you wish to be impressed or depressed at this feat, it's still well worth a look.

Another interesting thing MSX related:
* I am aware of no less than 2 developers that have made games that are strongly influenced by the MSX game Maze of Galious. There's the developer of La-Mulana; the original even included an area that was a throwback to the first stage of Maze of Galious. Then there's the developer of Unepic; one minor area of the game appears to be based off a later part of said game (and apparently originally used music from the game, but that was changed presumably due to copyright).
* Interestingly enough, those games are available on GOG in some form. Note, however, that the version of La-Mulana that you get here isn't the original version, but rather a remake that was originally released (IIRC) on the Nintendo Wii. I also note that both developers have each made at least one more game that has appeared here as well.

Another random MSX fact:
* There are two different versions of Ultima 3 for this system. One was released on a cartridge, and is a port of the NES version. The other one, released later, was apparently released on floppy disk and was a port of a Japanese computer version, and most likely plays more like other computer versions. (It didn't get a port of NES Ultima 4, however; it would have been interesting had they released that alongside the version the MSX did get, which is again a port of other computer versions that was released on a pair of floppies.)

(Also, did you know that the original Final Fantasy was released on floppy disk for the MSX?)

I had a Spectravideo SV-328 for some time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV-328
http://www.samdal.com/sv328.htm

I think it was technically (hardware etc.) the same as both the Colecovision gaming consoles, and the (first generation) MSX computers which were based on the SV-328 as the wikipedia article says.

I mostly regretted getting this computer as it was merely a stepping stone to the MSX home computers which would have much more games. While SV-328 had the same technical capabilities as MSX computers, it was not compatible with them. It felt like I had some unsupported alpha version of a MSX computer. :(

There were two cool things about SV-328 though:

1. You could buy some additional adapter for it, with which you could play all Colecovision console games. I didn't have that adapter unfortunately, as I found Colecovision games quite good overall.

2. With some kind of expansion bay, you could expand the SV-328 into a professional level CP/M-computer, along with a real computer monitor with 80-character display. CP/M was basically the standard professional operating system for companies etc., before MS-DOS replaced it. I always think of CP/M as a kinda predecessor to MS-DOS, even if it was not from Microsoft. My big brother bought that expansion and a monitor, whee!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M

Anyway, while SV-328/Colecovision/MSX1 could do some quite impressive games, I always felt it was still technically lacking compared to e.g. Commodore 64 that my friends had instead. C=64 had somewhat better music capabilities (audio chip), better smooth scrolling in games (which was painfully obvious when comparing games like Zaxxon both platforms) etc:

Zaxxon on Coleco/MSX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGIAKKsNylU

Zaxxon on C=64: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB-Tt6O9Onc

EDIT: Apparently there was a separate MSX-version of Zaxxon made later, but it has just as poor and jumpy "scrolling" as the earlier Colecovision version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmlsfPw_qaI

I kinda wished I had gotten a Commodore 64 instead, but all was redeemed a few years later when I got my Commodore Amiga A500. :)

EDIT: An interesting comparison video of different versions of Zaxxon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZWkabEPPeM

Apparently it was so advanced game at its time with its diagonal scrolling etc. that it was good material for technical comparisons... Intellivision and Atari VCS didn't even try to perform diagonal scrolling, but changed the view to be from behind the ship, Too hard for those systems, LOL.

Most MSX games had that jumpy "scrolling", but there were a few that somehow figured out a way to make proper scrolling, like Bosconian ( https://youtu.be/iktEEmK63ds ) and Road Fighter ( https://youtu.be/1kfG6nQPRgQ ).