Atari v Commodore

[Gorf]

So the fact that you declare yourself an A8 person through and through is somehow supposed to validate your opinion that the C64 is "the better machine?" Please explain the purported logic behind this. Barry Goldwater would be proud of you if he were still living.

 

 

 

 

My sides hurt.

[Gorf]

Yes of course, you are right. 1000s of quality C64 games. I am closing my eyes, I can see them now, 1000s, no millions in fact. I'm floating, I am smoking what you are smoking, this is some good shit indeed.

 

Ok guys, let's not bogart.....pass that bitch this way!

 

[Wolfram]

its not my logic. its emkay logic.

 

No, it is your logic, as it was you who called the 320K "nonstandard". The thing I am telling you (and Frohn) is that you, as C-64 guys, are not in the position to come here and tell us, what's standard on the Atari and what's not.

 

IIRC, emkay has nowhere said, that replaying samples on SID is "nonstandard" and therefore it is lame to use that.

 

I have already wrote it was irony. ironizing emkay's false logic. take it easy.

[Bryan]

My enjoyment of the A8 is not contingent upon a belief that the 64 is garbage.

 

Atari was first. It is not important that it defeat future machines in every way. I was just a kid back in the day, but knowing what I know now I would make the following recommendations:

 

In 1980 I would recommend the Atari 800 90% of the time. Perhaps the occasional Apple II for strictly business use.

 

 

In 1983 it would depend on the user.

 

If the main interest was games then the 64 was affordable, capable, and would be the best alternative to a game console.

 

If it was a mix of gaming and applications, then Atari had advantages of both the 64 and the Apple. Atari had a great expansion system and could simultaneously support 8 drives, multiple printers, a modem, cassette drive, etc... The OS supported add-on drivers (handlers) so existing applications could support future devices. There was also a wide range of third-party peripherals. I give Atari the nod for its general Home Computing aspects.

 

Again, the Apple II slips in there for strictly business applications. It was highly expandable and there was an abundance of 80 column software that neither the Atari or 64 had. The PC was beginning to emerge as well, but was well out of reach for most people.

 

 

By 1986, I would recommend a 16-bit computer. I owned an ST, but today I think the Amiga was the better design.

[drac030]

I have already wrote it was irony. ironizing emkay's false logic. take it easy.

 

Your public fails to recognize the statement as ironic (my point and emkay's point are not close enough for that). Besides, it would be better, if you'd discussed your controversies with emlay with him, and not with someone else.

[Wolfram]

I have already wrote it was irony. ironizing emkay's false logic. take it easy.

 

Your public fails to recognize the statement as ironic (my point and emkay's point are not close enough for that). Besides, it would be better, if you'd discussed your controversies with emlay with him, and not with someone else.

 

infact it was you who has stepped into our converstion with emkay. if you whish me to discuss my controversies only with emkay, then dont do that next time.

[Bryan]

infact it was you who has stepped into our converstion with emkay. if you whish me to discuss my controversies only with emkay, then dont do that next time.

This topic is 150 pages long. If you're trying to have a private conversation you'll have to announce that fact.

[Wolfram]

If it was a mix of gaming and applications, then Atari had advantages of both the 64 and the Apple. Atari had a great expansion system and could simultaneously support 8 drives, multiple printers, a modem, cassette drive, etc... The OS supported add-on drivers (handlers) so existing applications could support future devices. There was also a wide range of third-party peripherals. I give Atari the nod for its general Home Computing aspects.

 

 

there's nothing up there a c64 cant offer. You should have listed instead the faster (if we dont consider c64 speeders) disk I/O, more friendly disk os, autoboot, etc.

[emkay]

supercomputer calculations on a8? yeah. give me a break. can you talk about the real world instead of your imaginations?

 

Those are not my imaginations. Particular Lucas Games Department (later Lucasfilm Games) wrote the games on "Supercomputers" and then simply cutted all, until the software worked on the A8. There were no optimisations done to speed things up. If you're an Atari Guy you would see at the first sight, that they really did nothing special with the Atari. Just use stuff "right out of the book".

On the C64 they did some code for some speeding up there, else the games wouldn't run as "fast" as they does on the C64.

[Wolfram]

infact it was you who has stepped into our converstion with emkay. if you whish me to discuss my controversies only with emkay, then dont do that next time.

This topic is 150 pages long. If you're trying to have a private conversation you'll have to announce that fact.

 

looks like you dont understand the sentence you are replying to. read it again please.

[emkay]

if we can get back to our topic finally: amiga turrican is as much better as c64 turrican, as much better c64 turrican would be if a8 turrican existed.

 

Clear thing. Turrican is 100% C64 optimised. So it will be "optical" worse on the A8, if only by the fact that it cannot be shown 100% same there. But we could use some optical enhancements as used in the Amiga version.

[Wolfram]

supercomputer calculations on a8? yeah. give me a break. can you talk about the real world instead of your imaginations?

 

Those are not my imaginations. Particular Lucas Games Department (later Lucasfilm Games) wrote the games on "Supercomputers" and then simply cutted all, until the software worked on the A8. There were no optimisations done to speed things up. If you're an Atari Guy you would see at the first sight, that they really did nothing special with the Atari. Just use stuff "right out of the book".

On the C64 they did some code for some speeding up there, else the games wouldn't run as "fast" as they does on the C64.

 

 

ah, so there's no "supercomputer calculations" on a8 at all. thanks for clearing that up.

[emkay]

I have already wrote it was irony. ironizing emkay's false logic. take it easy.

 

The irony is about what you understood there....

Edited April 13, 2009 by emkay

[Wolfram]

if we can get back to our topic finally: amiga turrican is as much better as c64 turrican, as much better c64 turrican would be if a8 turrican existed.

 

Clear thing. Turrican is 100% C64 optimised. So it will be "optical" worse on the A8, if only by the fact that it cannot be shown 100% same there. But we could use some optical enhancements as used in the Amiga version.

 

 

Turrican could be much done better. Same goes for Amiga Turrican. Remember it was not a die hard fan project, just a game for money. Indeed you could use some rainbow coloring for the backgrounds.

[emkay]

ah, so there's no "supercomputer calculations" on a8 at all. thanks for clearing that up.

 

Ofcourse they are. That's why the Lucasfilm Games were not as fast as the A8 could do, after code optimising.

[drac030]

infact it was you who has stepped into our converstion with emkay. if you whish me to discuss my controversies only with emkay, then dont do that next time.

 

I wish you do not use the argument, that might apply to emkay's argumentation, to argue with someone else, who raises another point, than emkay did. Clear now?

Edited April 13, 2009 by drac030

[emkay]

Turrican could be much done better. Same goes for Amiga Turrican. Remember it was not a die hard fan project, just a game for money. Indeed you could use some rainbow coloring for the backgrounds.

 

LOL Turrican is done 2 times more on the C64.... even by a team that does real miracles on the c64 (T3). And it suffers every time by the limited CPU.

 

On the Amiga it clearly could have been better, as I stated before. The gameplay was limited to have it similar to the C64 game. The really advanced part on the Amiga was the Soundtrack and the "real" colours, and, ofcourse the >graphics resolution movement< of all objects, not this charmode shots and charmode sprites.

Edited April 13, 2009 by emkay

[Fröhn]

On the Amiga it clearly could have been better, as I stated before. The gameplay was limited to have it similar to the C64 game. The really advanced part on the Amiga was the Soundtrack and the "real" colours, and, ofcourse the >graphics relolution movement< of all objects, not this charmode shots and charmode sprites.

And even though the Amiga version is a port from the C64 version, it's still one of the best Amiga games. What does that tell you?

 

(Btw I prefer Amiga Turrican over C64 Turrican aswell, but only because of the awesome ingame music which the C64 version lacks)

[Wolfram]

infact it was you who has stepped into our converstion with emkay. if you whish me to discuss my controversies only with emkay, then dont do that next time.

 

I wish you do not use the argument, that might apply to emkay's argumentation, to argue with someone else, who raises another point, than emkay did. Clear now?

 

the original argument which you attacked I have written to emkay and was already ironizing. already in my first response to you I have written it was just irony. so in fact I have not used an emkay style argument against you, you have replied to my emkay ironizing argument which I have written TO emkay.

[Fröhn]

That's true, but because most software is not bound to those few kB's of banked memory area you end up copying anyway.

That actually depends on the program and even more on the programmer. On Atari the banked area is 16K, it is pretty much. I gave you an example: the MAE is the assembler I often use (it stands for Macro-Assembler-Editor, it is probably unrelated to a C-64 asm of the same name), it loads itself into one of the banks and runs there, leaving the conventional memory for src/labels.

Similar things exist for C64 too, like Turbo Assembler for Retro Replay ROM. It's not that the CBM REU is "standard" or anything at all, it's just there, it's original CBM hardware and some software exists for it. For example a very fast packer program which uses the "compare" capability of the REU DMA.

 

Well, the banked code is undoubtfully more difficult to handle, than normal code, but I see nothing "too difficult" in it, yet nothing "too difficult for general purpose".

You should try to write banked software. It's quite difficult and gives you a lot of headaches for almost no benefit. That's why people prefer coding copy-to-RAM stuff for carts, especially when the cart hardware doesnt even exist yet when you code your game.

 

But at the other hand Atari coders are probably more used to memory banking and that's why it doesn't look too difficult for me.

Well C64 people are used to drive coding which is a hell lot more difficult. 2nd CPU, weird bus, other RAM and extremely hard to debug.

[atarian63]

Please.. the Vic was an utter failure in the US. The main market at the time.

Yeps a real failure on the main market. With 18 million sold units... And with C128 selling another 4 million. May I mention that the entire A8 line sold just about 4 million too?

Vic 20 a mostly non starter, Not C64, what can I say, the public often is not too bright.

Sorry I don't know commonsore terminology. To me a vic means vic20.

 

Your original statement was that the VIC was an utter market failure in the US. Sorry, but you got that wrong. VIC20 was the first computer to ever sell 1 million units. It was absolutely not a technical breakthrough, but more people could afford it than Ataris. If I remember right from the C= Book "on the Edge" VIC20 was originally a few weeks own hobby project of Bob Yannes ( SID designer). He just wanted to build a computer around the already existing but unused VIC-I gfx chip for fun. But when he showed it to one of his bosses, the machine got eventually made it to be seen by Jack Tramiel who instantly ordered it to be manufactured

Sorry, you are wrong, it never got market penetration and most who bought it found they could not do anything much with it and there was little to no software and what little there was was very hard to find as nobody carried it. With Atari you could go lots of places like Sears,Service Merchandise, Burdines,Lazarus and most major retailers. Also I still hate SID sounds, really grates on my nerves.

 

Sorry, you are wrong. The first computer to ever sell 1 million units had market penetration, and is/was a market success.

Total flop and wholly unsupported at the consumer level unlike Atari. I know a few people back in the day that bought one as it was cheap. They however did nothing with it and could not find software for it. Yeah.. that a real success

[drac030]

Similar things exist for C64 too

 

Yes, except, as you yourself argued, it is uncommon to use more than 64K RAM, so even if a program uses an extension, probably only few use it. Different situation here, RAM extensions are common, so more software uses them.

 

You should try to write banked software

 

ROTFL. I start to guess that you don't fully understand, what I wrote above.

 

Well C64 people are used to drive coding which is a hell lot more difficult. 2nd CPU, weird bus, other RAM and extremely hard to debug.

 

And 2600 is probably yet harder, but that's completely off topic.

[Wolfram]

Turrican could be much done better. Same goes for Amiga Turrican. Remember it was not a die hard fan project, just a game for money. Indeed you could use some rainbow coloring for the backgrounds.

 

LOL Turrican is done 2 times more on the C64.... even by a team that does real miracles on the c64 (T3). And it suffers every time by the limited CPU.

 

On the Amiga it clearly could have been better, as I stated before. The gameplay was limited to have it similar to the C64 game. The really advanced part on the Amiga was the Soundtrack and the "real" colours, and, ofcourse the >graphics resolution movement< of all objects, not this charmode shots and charmode sprites.

 

 

Yes. Hard triggered enemies could be fixed, char based scenery collision could be fined to pixelwise so you dont have to jump if a pixel is in the way just walk over it, more sprites could be displayed, the scrolling engine could be freedirectional instead of the now used 8 way scroll routine. there's a lot of room for (doable!) improvement.

[Bryan]

You know what? Everything has been said in this topic 6 times over. If people are signing up on AtariAge just to argue in this thread, then it has surely outlived its usefulness.

Edited April 13, 2009 by Bryan

[Wolfram]

Please.. the Vic was an utter failure in the US. The main market at the time.

Yeps a real failure on the main market. With 18 million sold units... And with C128 selling another 4 million. May I mention that the entire A8 line sold just about 4 million too?

Vic 20 a mostly non starter, Not C64, what can I say, the public often is not too bright.

Sorry I don't know commonsore terminology. To me a vic means vic20.

 

Your original statement was that the VIC was an utter market failure in the US. Sorry, but you got that wrong. VIC20 was the first computer to ever sell 1 million units. It was absolutely not a technical breakthrough, but more people could afford it than Ataris. If I remember right from the C= Book "on the Edge" VIC20 was originally a few weeks own hobby project of Bob Yannes ( SID designer). He just wanted to build a computer around the already existing but unused VIC-I gfx chip for fun. But when he showed it to one of his bosses, the machine got eventually made it to be seen by Jack Tramiel who instantly ordered it to be manufactured

Sorry, you are wrong, it never got market penetration and most who bought it found they could not do anything much with it and there was little to no software and what little there was was very hard to find as nobody carried it. With Atari you could go lots of places like Sears,Service Merchandise, Burdines,Lazarus and most major retailers. Also I still hate SID sounds, really grates on my nerves.

 

Sorry, you are wrong. The first computer to ever sell 1 million units had market penetration, and is/was a market success.

Total flop and wholly unsupported at the consumer level unlike Atari. I know a few people back in the day that bought one as it was cheap. They however did nothing with it and could not find software for it. Yeah.. that a real success

 

VIC20 was the first computer to ever sell 1 million units. It was a huge market success.