301 replies to this topic

[andym00]

..Well that's what the article is called
http://wosland.podga...m/fuck-the-c64/..

I figured some here would see find this amusing, and indeed learn some valuable lessons in how to translate pure rage into writing, as The Rev literally busts a blood-vessel over the EuroGamer article regarding the 64 vs Spectrum.. This one.. http://www.eurogamer...vs-commodore-64

It's a brilliant example of how to rage properly

I love The Rev

[JohnBuell]

Money quote from the article: "Gary Liddon cites the LucasArts conversions of BallBlazer and Rescue on Fractalus as two of the games that most impressed him on the C64. They had been ported across from more powerful hardware but still looked superb."


Emphasis added.

Edited by JohnBuell, Sun Apr 29, 2012 2:22 PM.

[potatohead]

LOL, yeah I saw that too.

Great article, BTW.  Love that kind of cheeky writing, no matter what the platform.

[Bryan]

Speccy is crap. Their slogan should have been, "We built the Perspex overlay into the game!"

[SIO99]

I hate the C64 because of a lot of stress trying to program, caused by the antique dialect of BASIC I found out it had. When I found out that some computers had a 3 or 4 channel synthesiser chip instead of just a 1 channel sound chip or tone generator, I made a shortlist of those. Little did I know! I nearly got an Atari 8 bitter instead. I sold the C64 after 10-11 months, with some books for half price of the total. Here's some more details, which I've already posted on another thread.

I've done some more research into the numbers of BASIC commands on the Commodore 64, as well as on rival computers and here they are.

Click here for a full list of Commodore 64 BASIC commands (total 71) -

http://www.c64-wiki....hp/C64-Commands

Click here for a full list of Sinclair Spectrum BASIC commands (total 86) -

http://en.wikipedia..../Sinclair_BASIC

Click here for a full list of Amstrad Locomotive BASIC commands (total 165) -

http://cpcwiki.eu/in...ocomotive_BASIC

Click here for a full list of Atari BASIC XL commands (total 82)

http://www.atariarch...ge.php?page=376

I hope this proves conclusively that Commodore either just didn't care, were too stingy to pay anyone to create a new version of BASIC for the Commodore 64, or BOTH! We'll never know how many would be programmers had their confidence shattered by the Commodore 64. I can't help wondering how or why anyone managed to learn how to program it in 6502 Assembly Language, running on the compatible 6510 CPU. My theory is that some programmers learnt on the excellent Atari 8 bit range of computers, then were also able to put this knowledge to use on the Commodore 64. I read that one British software house hated the Commodore 64 so much, that they programmed games for it using a development kit running on the BBC Micro. Apart from anything else, the Commodore 64 was a revamped version of the Commodore Max games console (which included a keyboard), that it seems only went on sale in Japan. This had two versions of BASIC available, one without the ability to SAVE or LOAD programs, the other with only 2047 bytes free to BASIC! I don't know if any RAM upgrades were available. For more information on this botched pile of crap click on the two links below!

http://en.wikipedia....ore_MAX_Machine

http://www.northnet....or/cbm/max.html

[Random Terrain]

You weren't supposed to use Commodore 64 BASIC. You were supposed to use Garry Kitchen's GameMaker:

http://www.mts.net/~...maker/info.html

http://www.garrykitc..._gamemaker.html

[sloopy]

SIO99, on Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:36 PM, said:

I hate the C64 because of a lot of stress trying to program, caused by the antique dialect of BASIC I found out it had. When I found out that some computers had a 3 or 4 channel synthesiser chip instead of just a 1 channel sound chip or tone generator, I made a shortlist of those. Little did I know! I nearly got an Atari 8 bitter instead. I sold the C64 after 10-11 months, with some books for half price of the total. Here's some more details, which I've already posted on another thread.

I've done some more research into the numbers of BASIC commands on the Commodore 64, as well as on rival computers and here they are.

Click here for a full list of Commodore 64 BASIC commands (total 71) -

http://www.c64-wiki....hp/C64-Commands

Click here for a full list of Sinclair Spectrum BASIC commands (total 86) -

http://en.wikipedia..../Sinclair_BASIC

Click here for a full list of Amstrad Locomotive BASIC commands (total 165) -

http://cpcwiki.eu/in...ocomotive_BASIC

Click here for a full list of Atari BASIC XL commands (total 82)

http://www.atariarch...ge.php?page=376

I hope this proves conclusively that Commodore either just didn't care, were too stingy to pay anyone to create a new version of BASIC for the Commodore 64, or BOTH! We'll never know how many would be programmers had their confidence shattered by the Commodore 64. I can't help wondering how or why anyone managed to learn how to program it in 6502 Assembly Language, running on the compatible 6510 CPU. My theory is that some programmers learnt on the excellent Atari 8 bit range of computers, then were also able to put this knowledge to use on the Commodore 64. I read that one British software house hated the Commodore 64 so much, that they programmed games for it using a development kit running on the BBC Micro. Apart from anything else, the Commodore 64 was a revamped version of the Commodore Max games console (which included a keyboard), that it seems only went on sale in Japan. This had two versions of BASIC available, one without the ability to SAVE or LOAD programs, the other with only 2047 bytes free to BASIC! I don't know if any RAM upgrades were available. For more information on this botched pile of crap click on the two links below!

http://en.wikipedia....ore_MAX_Machine

http://www.northnet....or/cbm/max.html

Heh... interesting... you should read 'On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore'

and then you will know why the C64 isnt a 'revamped Commodore Max'
why the basic sucked, and some other interesting tidbits...

sloopy.

[SIO99]

sloopy, on Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:47 PM, said:

SIO99, on Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:36 PM, said:

I hate the C64 because of a lot of stress trying to program, caused by the antique dialect of BASIC I found out it had. When I found out that some computers had a 3 or 4 channel synthesiser chip instead of just a 1 channel sound chip or tone generator, I made a shortlist of those. Little did I know! I nearly got an Atari 8 bitter instead. I sold the C64 after 10-11 months, with some books for half price of the total. Here's some more details, which I've already posted on another thread.

I've done some more research into the numbers of BASIC commands on the Commodore 64, as well as on rival computers and here they are.

Click here for a full list of Commodore 64 BASIC commands (total 71) -

http://www.c64-wiki....hp/C64-Commands

Click here for a full list of Sinclair Spectrum BASIC commands (total 86) -

http://en.wikipedia..../Sinclair_BASIC

Click here for a full list of Amstrad Locomotive BASIC commands (total 165) -

http://cpcwiki.eu/in...ocomotive_BASIC

Click here for a full list of Atari BASIC XL commands (total 82)

http://www.atariarch...ge.php?page=376

I hope this proves conclusively that Commodore either just didn't care, were too stingy to pay anyone to create a new version of BASIC for the Commodore 64, or BOTH! We'll never know how many would be programmers had their confidence shattered by the Commodore 64. I can't help wondering how or why anyone managed to learn how to program it in 6502 Assembly Language, running on the compatible 6510 CPU. My theory is that some programmers learnt on the excellent Atari 8 bit range of computers, then were also able to put this knowledge to use on the Commodore 64. I read that one British software house hated the Commodore 64 so much, that they programmed games for it using a development kit running on the BBC Micro. Apart from anything else, the Commodore 64 was a revamped version of the Commodore Max games console (which included a keyboard), that it seems only went on sale in Japan. This had two versions of BASIC available, one without the ability to SAVE or LOAD programs, the other with only 2047 bytes free to BASIC! I don't know if any RAM upgrades were available. For more information on this botched pile of crap click on the two links below!

http://en.wikipedia....ore_MAX_Machine

http://www.northnet....or/cbm/max.html

Heh... interesting... you should read 'On the Edge: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore'

and then you will know why the C64 isnt a 'revamped Commodore Max'
why the basic sucked, and some other interesting tidbits...

sloopy.

I'm afraid I'm not willing to waste all that money on this book. Perhaps you could tell me the gist of what's in it, or post a link to a version of the story. The Commodore 64 has caused me enough stress and possibly permanent psychological damage. I'm just about to buy an Atari 8 bitter as a kind of therapy to help me forget I ever owned a Commodore 64 and to write some programs I should've written back in those days. I've already been writing a few Atari BASIC programs on an emulator.

Of course, Commodore first brought out some reasonable BASIC dialects in cartridge form (VIC Super Expander, Simon's BASIC, etc), but these were only good for writing programs for personal use, because not many computer owners did programming and any programs written using these extra commands could only run on Commodore 64s and VIC-20s which had one of these cartridges fitted. There were also various other extended BASICs for the Commodore 64 available on cassette. There was nothing like Turbo BASIC for the Atari, though. Lots of software was only available on disk, but the Commodore 1541 disk drive was more expensive than the computer and slower than some cassette drives!

[HiroProX]

Personally, I've usually considered the Spectrum and Atari 8-bit to be the superior machines. But this isn't due to raw tech, because frankly, the C64 wins on that score. The C64's biggest weakness was that it required almost godlike programming skills to bring out the full capability of the hardware, and worse, not even a reasonable subset of those abilities could be accessed from BASIC without POKEs that were easier to implement in ASM. Seriously, C64 BASIC was hideous. The only thing that allowed Commodore to get away with that pathetic excuse for a bundled BASIC was in the states the C64 with a disk drive was so cheap that mommy and daddy would buy junior a C64, 1541, and a couple of games, and most wouldn't even bother to learn programming.

Here's a comparison from the time period.......

Person A: Got a brand new C64 and 1541 for christmas.

Person B(Okay, okay, this guys is actually me): Got a brand new Atari 1200XL and a 1010 for christmas. (Trust me, 1050s were EXPENSIVE when they came out)

Fast forward a year........

Person A: Wants a bunch of new games

Person B: Wants Action! (I asked for Action!, I got a 1050 and MAC/65, I could deal with it.)

The reason is, AtariBASIC for all of its faults, actually made learning to program something fun and rewarding. Talking to friends who had C64s who wanted to program they had nothing but ill to say about the built-in BASIC, I wound up being their go-to guy when they wound up ditching the internal BASIC for ASM as well.

It's kind of funny, but it took until the 90s for a series of games to come out that got me excited, MechWarrior.

[Random Terrain]

SIO99, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:42 AM, said:

Of course, Commodore first brought out some reasonable BASIC dialects in cartridge form (VIC Super Expander, Simon's BASIC, etc), but these were only good for writing programs for personal use, because not many computer owners did programming and any programs written using these extra commands could only run on Commodore 64s and VIC-20s which had one of these cartridges fitted. There were also various other extended BASICs for the Commodore 64 available on cassette. There was nothing like Turbo BASIC for the Atari, though. Lots of software was only available on disk, but the Commodore 1541 disk drive was more expensive than the computer and slower than some cassette drives!

Garry Kitchen's GameMaker would compile your game into a stand-alone executable prg file.

[potatohead]

LOL!!!

Well, the book isn't that expensive, and the various stories of that time are generally great reads, but that's just me.

Seriously?  All that over a BASIC?

The first computer I really got to program on did TEXT.  (Trash 80, Model I)  Thought it was cool enough.  Honestly, you've a fair point on commands to exploit the graphics and sound of the machine, but...  There were lots of ways to get stuff done, and full games published in magazines back then too.  (Wish I had saved them, but we swapped titles for the type-ins, and tricks.)  Most people I know, enjoyed getting at the hardware, PEEKS and POKES.  On the 64, a few of those saw sprites moving over rather easily defined character maps...  Oh well.  Rant away.  I'm entertained.  Seriously, no angst intended.

[emkay]

HiroProX, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:44 AM, said:

The C64's biggest weakness was that it required almost godlike programming skills to bring out the full capability of the hardware, and worse, not even a reasonable subset of those abilities could be accessed from BASIC without POKEs that were easier to implement in ASM.

My air has almost gone, reading this. It's exaclty the vice versa. No other platform made it that easy to have colourful games with moving objects on the screen and play some 3 channel music to it.
Hmmm... or do you mean "less brainpower = more godlike" ?

Look here:

Remove the level design and concentrate on the hardware programming:



and this one....

http://www.pouet.net...php?which=59225

It's done by the same "brain" , telling us he likes to code on both machines.

Best what he got:




got it?

[emkay]

Coding a game on the A8 takes more work.
In another thread we have discussed it already. Moving "Sprites" varies between "equal" to "50x faster" movement on the C64 than on the A8. So you have to presume more of the cpu usage, to make a final game. Where on the C64 things get more balanced and more obvious.

That's also the cause why "tech demos" on the A8 tell us nothing about a final production.

[DarkLord]

SIO99, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:42 AM, said:

I'm afraid I'm not willing to waste all that money on this book.

I'm not a big C64 fan either, but this book is well worth the cost. It's well written, and I
was fascinated to read the "behind the scenes" stories in it.

The programmers and designers antics are hilarious and make it worth the price of
admission alone!

[Random Terrain]

Someone should write "Fuck the 64" lyrics to go with the tune of this song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRBa1_eOaxU

[HiroProX]

The programming I did had little to do with games, though they did use the video hardware for interesting secondary effects at times.

The point is BASIC, which is by default the lowest common denominator for programming on 80s micros. And the C64's was bloody awful. If you have to alter memory location contents to do anything related to graphics and sound because the BASIC totally lacked commands to do those functions, then the BASIC is rubbish.

Edited by HiroProX, Mon Apr 30, 2012 1:48 AM.

[Heaven/TQA]

emkay, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 1:11 AM, said:

HiroProX, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 12:44 AM, said:

The C64's biggest weakness was that it required almost godlike programming skills to bring out the full capability of the hardware, and worse, not even a reasonable subset of those abilities could be accessed from BASIC without POKEs that were easier to implement in ASM.

My air has almost gone, reading this. It's exaclty the vice versa. No other platform made it that easy to have colourful games with moving objects on the screen and play some 3 channel music to it.
Hmmm... or do you mean "less brainpower = more godlike" ?

Look here:

Remove the level design and concentrate on the hardware programming:



and this one....

http://www.pouet.net...php?which=59225

It's done by the same "brain" , telling us he likes to code on both machines.

Best what he got:




got it?

But MK we can agree that TMR published more stuff than you? and that Callisto is looking like it looks could be simply because of lack experience on A8? Neverless the brain work...

[high voltage]

This should be in the 'classic computing' forum, not under A8

Edited by high voltage, Mon Apr 30, 2012 1:45 AM.

[potatohead]

Agreed, and frankly some code is way better than no code.  Callisto seems a first pass to me.  Nice one too.

[Philsan]

Random Terrain, on Sun Apr 29, 2012 10:44 PM, said:

You weren't supposed to use Commodore 64 BASIC. You were supposed to use Garry Kitchen's GameMaker:

http://www.mts.net/~...maker/info.html

http://www.garrykitc..._gamemaker.html

I miss such a program for A8.
Or an IDE like Visual batariBasic.

[Lazarus]

Dunno, C64 BASIC was good enough for me: It could load and run turbo assembler.

[Mclaneinc]

I'm sure TMR won't mind me saying he's not the greatest graphic artist (very good but not great) and as a test piece Callisto look great, I'll play it but then I value game play over looks.

As for the Speccy vs C64, never owned a speccy, I did own a ZX80 and 81 but never felt the pull for the speccy, it looked nice but I hated the colour clash, I know that sort of goes against the above but it just looked damn ugly and this is from a guy who loved the bareness that was Jumpman graphically (brilliant game tho). I leap frogged to the C64, although the colour palette seemed so muted compared to the 8 bit it was getting more and more games that I liked whereas the Atari was drying up.

I've since via emulation played some Speccy stuff, its ok but there's still not that pull to it..

As for what machine is better, depends on how you look at it, to a person its how much fun and interest they get out of the machine, I loved the 1K wonders on the ZX81, I had great fun learning BASIC so at the time I loved the machine so that was the best machine for me. Now if you take it from the technical POV then the C64 will win but I prefer to look at it from the personal way, every machine has something to offer, its purely what the user enjoys.

[Mclaneinc]

As for the Rev's rant, sorry that was just machine mania talking, pure fanboy foolishness.

Fun to read but barely any logic in there..

Edited by Mclaneinc, Mon Apr 30, 2012 2:52 AM.

[analmux]

high voltage, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 1:45 AM, said:

This should be in the 'classic computing' forum, not under A8

  I agree.

I'm not sick of the C64 itself, as I like the machine. I'm sick of the C64 being mentioned in this part of the ATARI forum, especially when the C64 isn't even related to the A8 at all.

[sack-c0s]

analmux, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:20 AM, said:

high voltage, on Mon Apr 30, 2012 1:45 AM, said:

This should be in the 'classic computing' forum, not under A8

  I agree.

I'm not sick of the C64 itself, as I like the machine. I'm sick of the C64 being mentioned in this part of the ATARI forum, especially when the C64 isn't even related to the A8 at all.

Amen!

I generally go to lemon 64 if I want to talk C64, formatwar if I want to argue the toss between different machines and would prefer to just come here for the Atari stuff.

On *every other forum* I read - world of spectrum, english Amiga board, stardot, you name it... *nobody even asks or mentions* what other machines I have, like or am currently doing stuff for. Here it's just a bloody overriding obsession that tends to wipe out everything else. If I didn't like the Atari *I won't bloodywell be here*.

Sometimes it's fair enough to mention the other machines as you might want to entice their coders/artists/musicians across, or they have a technique that looks interesting and might form a basis of something we could adapt and use on the A8 but can we drop using C64 ownership as a shitty stick to beat people with?

Anyway - Nothing the rev says counts in my book anyway - he's one of those people how likes to be abrasive for the sake of being abrasive and would probably argue for kitten genocide if he thought it'd get people talking about him in anger.

Edited by sack-c0s, Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:35 AM.