Atari v Commodore

[Allas]

After 10 years nobody will remember the 5200, or 800XL, or C64, or Spectrum... Only one computer will survive with new productions:

 

[Bryan]

 

LOL

That's about right..

[Oswald]

After 10 years nobody will remember the 5200, or 800XL, or C64, or Spectrum... Only one computer will survive with new productions:

 

I'm doubt that. c64 holds the largest active user base regarding any 8 bit computer sytem. also I believe more ppl know it than the vcs or spectrum or etc. alltogether.

[atariksi]

...

>That's just arguing semantics again; you're calling two sprites working in tandem a single multicolour sprite,...

...

 

I distinguish between two monochrome sprites and one multicolor sprites via bit 5 of 53275.

 

The hardware maintains that there are two independent sprites involved in one multicolour object, i'm with the Atari on this one, sorry.

 

I'm not currently doing any block copies. Worst case you also need to subtract 800+ DMA cycles saved by interrupt structure.

 

How are two sprites passing on a scanline without block copy then?

 

If you can't even accept that two monochrome sprites and a multicolor version of the two monochrome sprites are different, what's the point in asking something more complex?

[+Sauron]

I'm doubt that. c64 holds the largest active user base regarding any 8 bit computer sytem. also I believe more ppl know it than the vcs or spectrum or etc. alltogether.

 

Define "active". I see far more stuff coming out for the A8 than for the C64.

 

I'm also willing to bet that far more people remember the 2600 than the C64.

[atariksi]

...

>That's just arguing semantics again; you're calling two sprites working in tandem a single multicolour sprite,...

...

 

I distinguish between two monochrome sprites and one multicolor sprites via bit 5 of 53275.

 

The hardware maintains that there are two independent sprites involved in one multicolour object, i'm with the Atari on this one, sorry.

 

I'm not currently doing any block copies. Worst case you also need to subtract 800+ DMA cycles saved by interrupt structure.

 

How are two sprites passing on a scanline without block copy then?

 

of course they are 2 sprites... 2 hpos registers need to be set, 2 blocks of data moved, 2 collision registers to be checked, 2 colour registers.... and there are 2 sprites left...

 

Amiga does it the same way to get 4-bit depth sprites by pairing up two sprites. They still have to HPOS but yet the interpretation is different than if you just overlayed two sprites without having a bit for re-intrepreting the color.

[Shawn Jefferson]

...

>That's just arguing semantics again; you're calling two sprites working in tandem a single multicolour sprite,...

...

 

I distinguish between two monochrome sprites and one multicolor sprites via bit 5 of 53275.

 

The hardware maintains that there are two independent sprites involved in one multicolour object, i'm with the Atari on this one, sorry.

 

You have to move them seperately, maintain their data seperately... yea, they are definitely seperate sprites. Give it up Atariksi! There's no way in hell you are going to win the sprite argument against the C64. The C64's sprite hardware is just better. Just like later machines had better sprite hardware... The lynx has some killer sprite hardware for instance.

 

How are two sprites passing on a scanline without block copy then?

 

On the Atari, you have to copy anytime you are moving vertically even... unless you do something strange that compromises reusing the sprites further down the screen, or use up lots of memory (which no one would every do except in a some sort of tech demo.) I don't understand what Atariksi is talking about.

[FastRobPlus]

I'm doubt that. c64 holds the largest active user base regarding any 8 bit computer sytem. also I believe more ppl know it than the vcs or spectrum or etc. alltogether.

 

Define "active". I see far more stuff coming out for the A8 than for the C64.

 

I'm also willing to bet that far more people remember the 2600 than the C64.

 

And even more remember the C64, 800, VCS/2600, pong units, vectrex, Coleco all collectively as simply "The Atari we used to have" or "The Nintendo we used to have"

 

Oh yeah, and they remember all the games as "the tapes"

Edited December 5, 2008 by FastRobPlus

[atariksi]

...

It's swings and roundabouts, we come back to the subjective opinions as to if it's better to have the DLI helping out or the ability to do stuff whenever you want with raster interrupts; C64 coders like being able to use character modes and kick interrupts in halfway down a character for example, the Atari can't do that with the DLI as far as i'm aware and has to trip an interrupt early and wait for the remaining scanlines. Staying in sync on the C64 isn't as big an issue as you're trying to make it sound either, demos do it all the time and games like Mayhem In Monsterland or Fred's Back have to be cycle accurate for their scrolling routines - in the majority of cases it's not really a need to be more accurate than triggering on the right scanline anyway, though.

...

 

You can trigger off an IRQ in the middle of character vertically and many cases horizontally as well where timer accuracy does play a part:

 

;*** Test timer accuracy on Atari 400/800 by Krishna Software Inc. without using DLIs.

TIMERFREQLSB = 53760

TIMERFREQMSB = 53762

WSYNC = 54282

VCOUNT = 54283

 

DOSVEC = 10

CASINI = 2

WARMSTART = 58484

VMIRQ = 534 ;hardware irq ptr

 

ORG = 600h

;DW 0FFFFh

;DW StartAdr

;DW LastOffset-1

DB 0,3 ;# of sectors to load 1..255

DW ORG

DW StartAdr

Rts

StartAdr: Lda #MyReset,L

Sta CASINI

Lda #MyReset,H

Sta CASINI+1

Lda #0

Sta 580

Lda #2

Sta 9

Jmp WARMSTART

MyReset: Lda #2

Sta 9

Lda #MyReset,L

Sta CASINI

Lda #MyReset,H

Sta CASINI+1

Sei

Lda #0 ;no VBIs nor DLIs for maximum performance

Sta 54286

Sta 53774 ;disable all IRQs

Sta 54272 ;turn off screen

Lda #TimerTwoIRQ,L ;general IRQ routine but we use only for timer #2

Sta VMIRQ

Lda #TimerTwoIRQ,H

Sta VMIRQ+1

Lda #80 ;40 for join channels 3,4; +80 for channels 1+2 @1.79Mhz

Sta 53768 ;join channels at 1.79 Mhz

Lda #165 ;lsb 165

Sta 53760 ;timer #2 freq = 1789790/[A+1]

Lda #116 ;msb for rate divisor A

Sta 53762

Lda #2 ;2=timer interrupt

Sta 53774 ;enable IRQ #2

NotMidScreen: Lda VCOUNT

Cmp #65

Bne NotMidScreen

Sta WSYNC

Sta 53769 ;start timer counter

CLI

Lda #34

Sta 54272

IdleLoop: ;put your code here

Jmp IdleLoop

 

TimerTwoIRQ: Pha

Lda #255

Sta 53272 ;change register (like color for example)

Lda #0

Sta 53774

Lda #2

Sta 53774 ;send ack to timer irq

Nop

Nop

Lda #96

Sta 53272 ;change register (like color for example)

Pla

Rti

 

;LastOffset: DW 2e0h,2e1h,ORG

 

Here I modified the above so it's at 15.999Khz clock and it will always occur at end of scanline (even if you set IRQ in middle of scan-line):

 

 

;*** Test timer accuracy on Atari 400/800 by Krishna Software Inc. without using DLIs.

TIMERFREQLSB = 53760

TIMERFREQMSB = 53762

WSYNC = 54282

VCOUNT = 54283

 

DOSVEC = 10

CASINI = 2

WARMSTART = 58484

VMIRQ = 534 ;hardware irq ptr

 

ORG = 600h

;DW 0FFFFh

;DW StartAdr

;DW LastOffset-1

DB 0,3 ;# of sectors to load 1..255

DW ORG

DW StartAdr

Rts

StartAdr: Lda #MyReset,L

Sta CASINI

Lda #MyReset,H

Sta CASINI+1

Lda #0

Sta 580

Lda #2

Sta 9

Jmp WARMSTART

MyReset: Lda #2

Sta 9

Lda #MyReset,L

Sta CASINI

Lda #MyReset,H

Sta CASINI+1

Sei

Lda #0 ;no VBIs nor DLIs for maximum performance

Sta 54286

Sta 53774 ;disable all IRQs

Sta 54272 ;turn off screen

Lda #TimerTwoIRQ,L ;general IRQ routine but we use only for timer #2

Sta VMIRQ

Lda #TimerTwoIRQ,H

Sta VMIRQ+1

Lda #1+16 ;channels 1+2 @15.6999Khz

Sta 53768 ;join channels at 1.79 Mhz

Lda #5 ;lsb 5 (lsb of 262 scanlines - 1). Use 55 here for 312 scanlines (PAL)

Sta 53760 ;timer #2 freq = 15699.9/[A+1]

Lda #1 ;msb for rate divisor A

Sta 53762

Lda #2 ;2=timer interrupt

Sta 53774 ;enable IRQ #2

NotMidScreen: Lda VCOUNT

Cmp #65

Bne NotMidScreen

Sta WSYNC

Sta 53769 ;start timer counter

CLI

Lda #34

Sta 54272

IdleLoop: ;put your code here

Jmp IdleLoop

 

TimerTwoIRQ: Pha

Lda #255

Sta 53272 ;change register (like color for example)

Lda #0

Sta 53774

Lda #2

Sta 53774 ;send ack to timer irq

Nop

Nop

Lda #96

Sta 53272 ;change register (like color for example)

Pla

Rti

 

;LastOffset: DW 2e0h,2e1h,ORG

[Oswald]

I'm doubt that. c64 holds the largest active user base regarding any 8 bit computer sytem. also I believe more ppl know it than the vcs or spectrum or etc. alltogether.

 

Define "active". I see far more stuff coming out for the A8 than for the C64.

 

I'm also willing to bet that far more people remember the 2600 than the C64.

 

active = doing gfx, music, demo, game,crack, etc.

 

You searched for:

Releases matching:

Released between: 1 January 2008 and 1 January 2009

 

Found: 776 matches.

Refine search.

 

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/search/advancedresult.php

 

 

and as simply more c64 was sold than 2600 more people will remember it.

Edited December 5, 2008 by Oswald

[miker]

And probably will be more, but babbling here is so-sweet!

 

no?

[Oswald]

I'm doubt that. c64 holds the largest active user base regarding any 8 bit computer sytem. also I believe more ppl know it than the vcs or spectrum or etc. alltogether.

 

Define "active". I see far more stuff coming out for the A8 than for the C64.

 

I'm also willing to bet that far more people remember the 2600 than the C64.

 

And even more remember the C64, 800, VCS/2600, pong units, vectrex, Coleco all collectively as simply "The Atari we used to have" or "The Nintendo we used to have"

 

the kids were arguing in the schoolyards of who has the better machine. it was like todays xbox vs psp3. no way they forgot. Im used to look through lot of 8bit youtube stuff, never saw a comment calling wrong names. perhaps you can find one or two ?

 

edit:

 

see:

noone forgets Edited December 5, 2008 by Oswald

[potatohead]

I don't know about that.

 

Depends on a lot of other factors besides machines sold. Remembering will be impacted by the online efforts today. New people having experiences to remember, old guard passing along tricks, demos and such...

 

Here's a noodler for you Oswald: C64 is better. It really is! Got newer games, has that magic color density that just happens to balance things perfectly enough, and SID sound is just great.

 

Feel good about that?

 

(and I hope you do)

 

Hell, I thought that way back in the day. Still do. Don't care either.

 

I love Atari more. I love it more, not because it's better, but because I liked it better. I like the colors, I like the sounds, I like the machine design (Particularly the 400 and XL series), I like the games, and I like the system engineering. That was true back in the day too. More true for the CoCo I, II and III than it was the C64, for what it's worth!

 

Today, I still love Atari for all those reasons, and most all Atari people just being cool. It's fun. The homebrew scene is great, the people are great, new tech stuff comes out often enough to keep interest high for me. Somehow that didn't happen for the Apple, CoCo, C64 and TI, all of which I spent time on back then.

 

So what are you here for man?

 

Seriously?

 

Want everybody to just admit you are right across the board? C64 is just better always?

 

Or, do you need attention?

 

Maybe it's some deep seated insecurity about the C64 really being better. Maybe in some cases it isn't, and that's worrysome, so better to put up a strong front and not have to face that?

 

What?

 

I keep touch with the Atari stuff because I like to see the progress on new productions, tech info, and the annual squeeze where we get to see the machine do something new. Happens almost every year, and that's just kick ass!

 

So, here's my point. When this does happen, when people get attached to an older machine, and even spend time on them for the love of it, it's a special thing. Special enough to consider if hammering on it to this level ALL THE TIME is really worth it. What if those people just up and say "fuck it", and move on?

 

Yeah, I think about that, from time to time, and it's not pretty.

 

Just something to think about. Have a good weekend.

[Oswald]

I think you should open an "oswald" topic with emkay and alison, and discuss related stuff there.

 

 

edit: you know what I'll answer: its endlessly funny arguing so that the opposite side tries to claim the impossible and is clearly wrong in the moment they stop its boring. if an amiga zealot would come to a c64 forum I wouldnt try to explain him how the c64 is better nor do I try to explain how the c64's cpu is faster as an a8. but its really enterteining seeing atariski "prooving" atari sprites are better or emkay saying a8 can do 48 color last ninja

Edited December 5, 2008 by Oswald

[Alison DeMeyer]

I think you should open an "oswald" topic with emkay and alison, and discuss related stuff there.

 

 

edit: you know what I'll answer: its endlessly funny arguing so that the opposite side tries to claim the impossible and is clearly wrong in the moment they stop its boring. if an amiga zealot would come to a c64 forum I wouldnt try to explain him how the c64 is better nor do I try to explain how the c64's cpu is faster as an a8. but its really enterteining seeing atariski "prooving" atari sprites are better or emkay saying a8 can do 48 color last ninja

 

 

Loser.

[Artlover]

I'm assuming sample #3 (vicious sid module 3 VIC.mp3) is an example of VIC generated SIDless sound? I haven't had a real C64/128 set up since the coders came up with the technique so I've never heard it before. Most EMU's don't emulate that AFAIK.

 

#3 does change background color between black and white, and achieves the sound through the interference between vic and sid in the system. its a very quiet sound. just a stupid technical stunt like playing music with the drive. nothing can emulate it...

??? It was a "yes or no" question.

 

Anywho, yes, this is that example.

 

To that end, I'm confused by your comment regarding interference between vic & sid since it works without a sid in the machine. It's purely vic noise in and of itself and more dependant on other things, like the type of monitor you are using.

[TMR]

As far as I can tell, the Spectrum can't be helped. The limitations remain no matter what you do. This is also the case with the Apple II. These represent fundamental architecture differences.

 

Depends heavily on the Spectrum, if it's a stock 48K machine then if memory serves the location of the screen and attribute RAM are both hardwired so the most the CPU can do to assist is rewrite the attribute cells "live" during display to make some of the cells on a scanline 8x1 pixels - the technique is called "rainbow processing" and i've only ever seen it used to produce heavily coloured text and demo effects, i'm not aware of any games doing it.

 

On a 128K machine things open up quite a bit because they can place the screen and colour RAM at two locations, so interlacing two frames together can be done with close to zero CPU intervention and Gigascreen is a technique based on analysing those two frames for best effect. And, as Oswald said, the Russian clone machines like the Pentagon and indeed the two supercharged Spectrums produced for Europe and America by Timex and Sinclair have a hardware-based mode that gives 8x1 pixel attribute cells; the Pentagon even goes as far as having an extra mode which "de-interlaces" the output so it merges the two frames together and shovels that to the display, giving over a hundred colours at 256 by 192 with 8x1 pixel attributes and the CPU sat close to idle. The odd thing is i'm not sure i've ever seen a game using that mode...!

[ThomSW]

I think you should open an "oswald" topic

<smash>

 

What for? It(!) fits here soooo great.

 

HAHAHA MAKE MY DAY!

[Artlover]

Loser

Loser.

Loser.

Who don't you just go away.

[Albert]

The next person who resorts to name calling will be kicked out of the 8-bit forum indefinitely.

 

..Al

[TMR]

If you can't even accept that two monochrome sprites and a multicolor version of the two monochrome sprites are different

 

i don't accept your definition no because the Atari itself is quite clearly telling me that i've got two sprites and they can optionally work in tandem when the multicolour mode is enabled; i looked at a few books on Atari Archives just to confirm my memory, none of the ones i checked said that enabling multicolour gets you two multicolour sprites rather than four working in pairs either.

 

what's the point in asking something more complex?

 

Because you're claiming ten times the speed of my routine but being vague about how it'll deal with worst cases when i think it'll be significantly lower than ten times faster. Then we can get back to relative comparisons between that and the C64. =-)

[Fröhn]

Define "active". I see far more stuff coming out for the A8 than for the C64.

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/latestreleases.php

[Artlover]

Anoter demonstration of "16 colours are not 16 colours, if they don't fit together.

 

Someone has built a remake of the game for the PSP:

 

Look: Colourfull with mainly the same colour count, but no eyecancer here.

 

This is a strange comparision - but for me it actually reinforces how good the original C64 game looked.

 

( perhaps you need to start a topic at lemon about c64 vs PSP )

Agree, very strange comparison since it seems to complete disprove the very point he was trying to make.

 

Color pallet seems to be largely the same, tho the PSP version appears to be use softened more pastel like substitutions for some of them. Then of course the obvious resolution difference between the C64 & PSP that the PSP version is obviously taking advantage of.

 

Had this been a PSP original that was remade on the C64, everyone would be ranting and raving about how close it was.

[emkay]

The next person who resorts to name calling will be kicked out of the 8-bit forum indefinitely.

 

..Al

 

 

I wonder how to find a conclusion. Either both Computers, the A8 and the C64 are no "complete" ones.

 

I also wonder why Oswald is still allowed doing insulting A8 friends and bashing the A8 without any consequences.

 

It's one of the factors why I wanted to remove all entrys I ever made in this forums and to leave this all....

 

 

Well, I' ever was a fan of the A8, but what is a community worth where people manage something and even prefer the C64 over the A8?

 

Back in the 80/90's I was already angry and finished with this "running after the C64". On the other hand were people whom was all "alike" saying 50 Hz are still enough for music. I knew some musician who left the A8 theme by this fact.

 

As you might have recognized, the whole Atari scene has only 2 people who did (and do) some really outstanding for the A8:

 

-Sheddy

-Eru

 

 

So I still cannot understand people saying " the C64 is the better computer. It still is not true. It's just another solution of a technical age and it's possibilites. The size of community does not fit to the quality of the machine.

 

In Germany we have some sentence for this: "Millions of Flys cannot be wrong, dung tastes..."

 

It's only the size of C64 community that brought approximated well stuff to that machine...

 

Nothing more to say.

Edited December 5, 2008 by emkay

[Godzilla]

so... nothing like numen on the c64?

 

hows about

 

vs

 

 

and as far as koronis, have you seen the c64 version and the a8bit version? Yes, I know it exists for both systems, I own it for both systems. And the a8bit version doesn't just have much more colorful 2d screens, it moves and plays faster and smoother in the 3d sections.