The main and most important difference between those chips and POKEY is the defined programming interface built into the hardware. To create music with the same ease using POKEY, means to have a fully working software to handle music by just simply (for musicians) programming the interface. All the complex calculations built with POKEY ends up in just changing 9 registers every VBI (or faster if people like) . Doing a snapshop oft the 9 Registers and storing them, just means to use 2 % of CPU to set the values to play the music. dxRMT was the closest tool to have a real Software ....
