Wolfram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETSCII The character set was largely designed by Leonard Tramiel (the son of Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel) and PET designer Chuck Peddle. Peddle claims the inclusion of card suit symbols was spurred by the demand that it should be easy to write card games on the PET (as part of the specification list he received).[2] The VIC-20 used the same pixel-for-pixel font as the PET (although the characters appeared wider due to the 22-column screen). The Commodore 64, however, used a slightly re-designed, heavy upper-case font that was basically a thicker version of the PET font. The reason for this was the higher resolution of the C64 which caused color artefacts when using the thin PET font. The result looked similar to the Atari font which is why some people believe that the C64 font is a copied and modified version of the Atari font, but since the PET font can be converted to the C64 font with a small program, this theory is out of question.

C= had this thingie you call SIO before a8 came out, including the device independent I/O.

yeah. c64 alone vs the whole line of a8 computers. we can argue like that too: I'll take plus4 for nr of colors and ability to display them, c128: 80 column display, diskspeed, CPU speed, etc.

guess what it's faster than a8 ever will be. it was faster when it mattered. and now when it doesnt matters anymore you take the advantage which made it faster and turn the tables and make it a disadvantage. very creative arguing I have to admit.

okay you win! poor c64, shouldnt have an intelligent drive, because 30 years later that means a disadvantage VS the times when it mattered and was a clear advantage.

same thing happened on c64 too. games got better and better through its commercial lifetime. in 82 you see 2600 like stuff, at the end of the lifespan c64 had amiga/pc titles. Sound&GFX is still being improved until today just like on a8. I dont know whats XIO is, but SIO is nothing special. daisy chaining of devices was there before and after atari. commodore did it before/after atari aswell. just take it. 1/100th or less of the software than on c64. no fan community. it must be big fun. .. and I'd take a speccy over a8 better software support again, more fans. etc. 2mhz is just not enough, to make up for scrolling and sprites with cpu alone. any coder will tell you.

real colors? like the c64 has fake colors ? I dont get it. A bit incorrect tho, for 256 colors you have to halve the resolution vertically.

indeed not comparable to c64. here we can see some depth aswell.

I guess nobody knows except you what are you talking about here.

you can hook up a c64 to a TV set. it was designed to be connected to TVs from the very start. AV cables, no problem. but AFAIK a8 has no AV (composite) out built in. I might be as wrong as you were with TV sets tho. cartridge based games got outdated in the early 80s. they suck anyway to disk based ones, regarding c64 games.

The C64 can also do 80x200 @ 16 colors with complete freedom which of the 16 colors to use. But that is only a subset of the FLI mode (160x200) which has an even higher color depth. thats something a8 cant do, but on the other hand c64 cant do 16 shades of one color. In non-interlaced, Graphics 11 has 16 colors same as C64 so you missed the point, but then you also get GPRIOR on top of that. Interlaced modes give you more combinations on Atari. well, yeah. but it has to be the same luminance.

The C64 can also do 80x200 @ 16 colors with complete freedom which of the 16 colors to use. But that is only a subset of the FLI mode (160x200) which has an even higher color depth. thats something a8 cant do, but on the other hand c64 cant do 16 shades of one color. In non-interlaced, Graphics 11 has 16 colors same as C64 so you missed the point, but then you also get GPRIOR on top of that. Interlaced modes give you more combinations on Atari. well, yeah. but it has to be the same luminance.

The C64 can also do 80x200 @ 16 colors with complete freedom which of the 16 colors to use. But that is only a subset of the FLI mode (160x200) which has an even higher color depth. thats something a8 cant do, but on the other hand c64 cant do 16 shades of one color.

1. cant imagine thats true. both machines draws up the full frame right on spot with the electron beam. 2. same goes for a8, except the new vertical technique mentioned.

there are two disk drive emulations / replacements which does the job. and clearly this is not the strength of the a8 drives, just sideeffects of its design and 1541's design 30 yrs later.

..and if he wanted a blue sky he'd have a blue tshirt&blue tree, or if he wanted a red tshirt, he'd have a red sky & red tree, or if he wanted a brown tree he'd have a brown sky & brown tshirt. sorry, we both know thats not the reason. it's simply a8's limitations. it's charmode, and I can easily tell the main character colors being: purple, white,black, gray and the most used green. when you have 128 colors, the only thing makes you use 5 colors only on the majority of the picture (not to talk about purple is used to "enhance" greens) , is the limitations. okay, I was wrong. the tree&sky&tshirt uses different color. I have played a bit with replacing colors, the result is imho a much better picture. the original artist focused probably on showing off with the palette trying to be different to c64... but when you have 2-3-4 steps between black and white (yes even with 128 colors you dont have more.. ), and the steps between the colors are not even, the result will be not so nice, if you force many colors that are close in brightness... I have tried to fix this issue, and give the picture a better contrast ramp: new: old:

..and if he wanted a blue sky he'd have a blue tshirt&blue tree, or if he wanted a red tshirt, he'd have a red sky & red tree, or if he wanted a brown tree he'd have a brown sky & brown tshirt. sorry, we both know thats not the reason. it's simply a8's limitations. it's charmode, and I can easily tell the main character colors being: purple, white,black, gray and the most used green. when you have 128 colors, the only thing makes you use 5 colors only on the majority of the picture (not to talk about purple is used to "enhance" greens) , is the limitations.

It sounds more like reframing the argument so that you have a strawman to beat the crap out of. The A8 chipset has no "graphics modes" it has line modes which are built into "graphics modes" as well as various ways individual modelines can be affected under anywhere from minimal to moderate CPU intervention which is exactly what Mr. Miner's team intended. It is expected by A8 developers that the graphics hardware will be directed. And yes, quite usable and artful displays can be build with plenty of CPU time left over for other tasks. The rate at which the CPU runs, the DMA, interrupts, Display Lists and so-forth are all of an integrated piece. It is supposed to work that way and Atari devs are quite correct to think "WTH?" when tasked with such facetious argument. actling like there's no difference between built in and cpu driven modes wont help. I can define the matter easily so that you cant escape: c64 can display a better picture without it's cpu touching any gfx chip regs without using "sprites" at all, than the a8 doing as hard as it can the opposite. "It is expected by A8 developers that the graphics hardware will be directed." indeed, now compare this graphics hardware to one which doesnt expects cpu help, and does still better ? no more comment needed.

Same here. Can one choose pallette in any of c64 emulators (for the original hardware only b/w monitor would help I suppose)? as more of these horribly colored pics are popping up, the more I love my c64 for being able to put the right colors into the right place.... what do we have here? the picture of the yearthousand, showing 29 colors! but whats there ? the same ugly yelloish brown color used for leafes/hair/tree/face/table/flower. An ugly color which is between puprle and blue displayed as sky/tshirt used instead of green (urgh!). Black is also all over the place, black for grass color/leaves on flowers/a whole butterfly wing? sorry I cant take that... a c64 can simply use brown for trees, green for grass, blue for sky. a c64 is not forced to display purple&green together. a c64 can use the right colors for the right place. also just check the tiny details the c64 is able to display _everywhere_ & the cpu idling, while on a8 it works like crazy, and still it has large areas 2/monocolored.

thats not quite correct. c64 can display pictures that look like true 320x200x16 (without interlace) with the help of the cpu. so it changes a thing or two... so kudo's for atari 8 bit for having a gfx chip which need the help of the cpu to come close to c64 default modes, which are not cpu aided.

color density = how many different colors can you display in smaller areas on average on the full picture. there's a reason I speak about color density and not about number of colors. And how big the smaller area are will decide who? YOU? I did choose area 160x200.. ok, I can i.e. split it in half.. 160x100 in each part >16 colors, thus higher density... or in quarters in each >16 colors.. the same... etc. well I dont know a better definiton to the obvious fact that c64 can display more differently colored pixels in tight areas over the whole picture as a8, you deliberately want to misunderstand it but we all know what I am talking about.

vs

color density = how many different colors can you display in smaller areas on average on the full picture. there's a reason I speak about color density and not about number of colors.

On ATARI you can have 23 consecutive pixels in resolution 160x200 each with different color with CPU sitting idle (your worshipped phrase). Show me your C64's 100x better color density. You can't whatever you do because only 16 colors pallete. thats just a very special case everyone knows. the c64 can have higher density over a whole picture.

ok, I will. c64 uses no cpu and sprites vs a8 using 60-70% cpu and all sprites.