[kevin_thibedeau]

Sample based tracker formats shouldn't be considered chiptunes. The latter is supposed to mean sound generated by dedicated hardware with automatic waveform generation, envelopes, and filtering. Doing it all in software by mixing samples isn't the same.

[daneel_w]

Sample-based tracker music and the Amiga scene is where the term and the artistic style was born. The Amiga scene and the musicians of that era are the authority.

[kevin_thibedeau]

That's where "tracker" originated. "Chiptunes" are a more recent denotation and imply hardware generated sound different than a tracker.

[daneel_w]

The term chiptune, and the technical approach and associated musical character, was firmly cemented in the Amiga scene already in the first half of the 90s. The composer who coined the term (in the beginning of the 90s) was legendary computer musician Matt "4-Mat" Simmonds. Everyone understands the difference between oscillators and sample playback, but notwithstanding the term being "technically lopsided" this is still the history of it.