The SID can indeed play sampled audio, the technique or trick involved toggling the volume register or the pulse width modulation register. See games like Impossible Mission, Ghostbusters, Way Of The Exploding Fist.. just some examples of playing audio samples. It was a crude way of playing samples and didn't compare to the clean 8bit PCM audio of the Mac.
Yes it can play really bad sampled audio, and that's why your term "crude" is 100% correct because I've heard those sampled audio sounds — especially Ghost Busters (aka, "speech busters") — and most of the time you're replaying it to figure out what was spoken.
When I got the 128K Mac in 1984, I also got a copy of SmoothTalker 1.0, and while "crude" versus speech of today (which is now hardly discernible from a real person), the Macintosh 128K's speech generation was a night-and-day difference over the C64's speech. I never once struggled to know what SmoothTalker said. In fact, I was enamored by how good my Mac was versus the 8-bit machines my friends at the time had (Jr. High school days). But when it comes to "synthesized" audio, the C64 beat the Mac and pretty much everything else in 1984. That's the main reason I bought the C64U, actually. You get to experience the SIDs yourself, on functional hardware — not just an emulator. There's something magical to me about real hardware, over and above an emulator.
I've been watching a lot of interviews and historical documentaries about Jack Tramiel, and there was one where Woz was asked to comment about the audio of the Apple II, and all he had to say at the time was that, as of the IIgs, the Apple II had good audio.
I thought that was hilarious. True, but still funny. Regardless of the design reasons, bad audio is bad audio, and you really can't say anything good to defend it other than what he said in that interview — as of the IIgs, we have it now! LOL. (Again, there was the Mockingboard and other add-ons, but when most games don't support them, it's almost like they didn't exist.)
The c64 was more difficult to program, the basic wasn't good and there was no built in machine code monitor. So I struggled with it having limited access to resources and just played games.
A lot of 8-bit machine makers in the early 80's wanted to pitch the "computer" aspect of their
gaming machines to convince parents to buy. And yes, it technically was a computer, despite the fact 90% of the user base were playing games. I suspect the remaining 10% were programming like mad on the C64 to bring even more games to market! Play games... Program more games!
Look at 8-bit Guy today. Aside from his excellent historical info videos on Commodore and the technical aspects of the machines, what he has produced for the C64 in recent times are games. Not knocking him at all. Just another example to show why the C64 was indeed a gaming machine first and foremost. And the fact that Jack T. keep reducing the price tag of the C64 helped ensure that more kids would get them. And kids play lots of games!
