Atari v Commodore

[Heaven/TQA]

ok... just setup my c64 II and playing

 

Armalyte... nice sprite multiplexor, the game could not be done in that quality on A8.

 

now R-Type

[frenchman]

is it better to have 4 bicycles or 3 cars? 4 is better because its more! come one!

 

 

Exactly, best selling computer does NOT mean better computer, finally you understand. Took you long enough.

[Wolfram]

is it better to have 4 bicycles or 3 cars? 4 is better because its more! come one!

 

 

Exactly, best selling computer does NOT mean better computer, finally you understand. Took you long enough.

 

indeed not. it was both better and cheaper.

[frenchman]

is it better to have 4 bicycles or 3 cars? 4 is better because its more! come one!

 

 

Exactly, best selling computer does NOT mean better computer, finally you understand. Took you long enough.

 

indeed not. it was both better and cheaper.

 

 

Cheaper yes, better, not by a long shot.

[Wolfram]

is it better to have 4 bicycles or 3 cars? 4 is better because its more! come one!

 

 

Exactly, best selling computer does NOT mean better computer, finally you understand. Took you long enough.

 

indeed not. it was both better and cheaper.

 

 

Cheaper yes, better, not by a long shot.

 

Wolfram: 100 frenchmen: 0

c64 wins again.

[Irgendwer]

because you have asked me to do that, and I did. Now its your turn. You should do it too if you want to play it fair. but you dont want to do you?

 

Just to stop you insulting me not to play fair, I did the following image within a 10min time limit. You have the luck that you have access to a

automatic conversion utility, which we haven't (until now). The image could look much more convincing with some additional work, but to be honest I

don't like the theme. So anybody else may like to improve it.

 

sure there is. You cant convert my c64 example to a8, while I can convert your a8 example to c64 in 5 minutes. c64->a8 conversion would result in 10x uglier picture including resolution loss. I'm not suprised you dont want to show that.

 

Hope you're content now...

 

CU

Irgendwer

[frenchman]

is it better to have 4 bicycles or 3 cars? 4 is better because its more! come one!

 

 

Exactly, best selling computer does NOT mean better computer, finally you understand. Took you long enough.

 

indeed not. it was both better and cheaper.

 

 

Cheaper yes, better, not by a long shot.

 

Wolfram: 100 frenchmen: 0

c64 wins again.

 

 

C64 hasn't won a first time yet, therefore: Void

[Wolfram]

Hope you're content now...

 

suprisingly good compared to what I know the a8 can do in hires.

[+wood_jl]

oh so there's a lot of dumb people on the c64 side because they go to dedicated SID parties to celebrate SID music. the orchestras playing SID music are dumb aswell. the people using SID as an instrument on its own (various SID midiboxes!) are dumb aswell. the commercial people using SID music in their works are dumb aswell. the SID fan bands playing SID music live are dumb aswell. People remixing SID music are dumb aswell.

 

The SID music is quite good.

 

If the time period (8-bit era) is considered, it is QUITE excellent. I rather like some of it, after finally hearing some. But it can not be considered the final evolution in synth of computer music! Otherwise, the C64 emulator would have no sound!!

 

I mean, the great sound of the SID should definitely be considered, but it should not be overblown into the assumption that it is the finest (or even close) audio equipment EVER created. Things have moved on, in 27 years. Otherwise, they will be writing the history books:

 

"In 1982, the SID chip was created for the Commodore 64. It is the world's finest piece of electronic synth hardware ever created. All research and development on successive design completely stopped, as the SID chip is considered the ultimate and final evolution of electronic music."

 

I do not think this is the case. SID is quite good, but no need to assume the above hypothetical paragraph is the way it is!

[Wolfram]

oh so there's a lot of dumb people on the c64 side because they go to dedicated SID parties to celebrate SID music. the orchestras playing SID music are dumb aswell. the people using SID as an instrument on its own (various SID midiboxes!) are dumb aswell. the commercial people using SID music in their works are dumb aswell. the SID fan bands playing SID music live are dumb aswell. People remixing SID music are dumb aswell.

 

The SID music is quite good.

 

If the time period (8-bit era) is considered, it is QUITE excellent. I rather like some of it, after finally hearing some. But it can not be considered the final evolution in synth of computer music! Otherwise, the C64 emulator would have no sound!!

 

I mean, the great sound of the SID should definitely be considered, but it should not be overblown into the assumption that it is the finest (or even close) audio equipment EVER created. Things have moved on, in 27 years. Otherwise, they will be writing the history books:

 

"In 1982, the SID chip was created for the Commodore 64. It is the world's finest piece of electronic synth hardware ever created. All research and development on successive design completely stopped, as the SID chip is considered the ultimate and final evolution of electronic music."

 

I do not think this is the case. SID is quite good, but no need to assume the above hypothetical paragraph is the way it is!

 

you're refuting something I havent said. SID orchestras, SID parties, SID bands, SID instrument boxes, etc all exists. I havent stated anything else.

[+wood_jl]

 

orchestra playing SID music:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EeArqKNKgg

 

But how can it be SID music if there are so many orchestra pieces playing? They need to have 3 performers (one for each SID voice) and no more, for it to be SID music, right? Just asking!

[Wolfram]

 

orchestra playing SID music:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EeArqKNKgg

 

But how can it be SID music if there are so many orchestra pieces playing? They need to have 3 performers (one for each SID voice) and no more, for it to be SID music, right? Just asking!

 

lets face it: if there were 3 performers you would have said SID music can be played only by SID.

[Nukey Shay]

215 pages and nobody can just simply agree to disagree yet?

 

"Ferd"

"Shibby"

"FERD!"

"SHIBBY!"

 

i.e. from the sidelines, it's all gibberish.

 

Different hardware, different strengths. IMO the thread should be retitled to "apples vs. oranges".

[+wood_jl]

These C64 screens have nice resolution, and excellent artwork.

The trouble is there is just too many chocolate-brown and violet tones in them. Most C64 pictures look like that.

 

These Atari pics don't look particularly hi-res, on the other hand.

 

You know, good graphics produce good feelings. Those colours cause nausea. There is nothing any good there, except you have distorted receptors in your eyes, or else...

 

lets compare, every 2nd one is a8, rest is c64:

 

 

 

 

 

Wolfram always mixes up "Sound" with "Music". YES, it is easy to handle SID for making 3 channel Music.

But, did anyone hear a clean analog sinewave played by SID, or something higher than 3.5kHz?

POKEY can produce clean analog waves, which is far superior to the SID sound generators.

 

thats a lie. proove I do that mixup. looks like infact you mix up sound with music. one sinewave doesnt makes the pokey better, its just a sound. SID has many many features pokey is missing.

[Wolfram]

215 pages and nobody can just simply agree to disagree yet?

 

"Ferd"

"Shibby"

"FERD!"

"SHIBBY!"

 

i.e. from the sidelines, it's all gibberish.

 

Different hardware, different strengths. IMO the thread should be retitled to "apples vs. oranges".

 

all computers have different HW, still they can be compared.

 

xbox vs wii ?

 

Different hardware, different strengths. IMO the thread should be retitled to "apples vs. oranges".

 

done.

 

[Gury]

because you have asked me to do that, and I did. Now its your turn. You should do it too if you want to play it fair. but you dont want to do you?

 

Just to stop you insulting me not to play fair, I did the following image within a 10min time limit. You have the luck that you have access to a

automatic conversion utility, which we haven't (until now). The image could look much more convincing with some additional work, but to be honest I

don't like the theme. So anybody else may like to improve it.

 

sure there is. You cant convert my c64 example to a8, while I can convert your a8 example to c64 in 5 minutes. c64->a8 conversion would result in 10x uglier picture including resolution loss. I'm not suprised you dont want to show that.

 

Hope you're content now...

 

CU

Irgendwer

Great work, Irgendwer

 

Great replication of a picture, in such a short time, shown so many times on C64 side. Surely not 10x uglier as stated from C64 guy. Maybe better in some respects.

[+wood_jl]

action biker atari:

c64:

 

well I dont know, I rather listen to music which is not horribly mistuned causing almost physical pain. I think thats needed for avr. gaming.

 

I don't think the Atari music sounds particularly bad, but I would quickly tire of hearing that repeat on either machine.

 

I think the scrolling on the C64 version is the strength, as the Atari version has a flickery bar across the bottom of the screen. I think this is simply the skill and/or dedication of the game programmers, rather than some proof against the Atari hardware. Yes, the C64 version looks and sounds good.

[+wood_jl]

there are no Yamaha music parties these years. SID has them.

 

Yes, but there are also Star Trek conventions. You won't find me going to any of them! I don't care even if you have a free Starfleet uniform for me. Same thing with SID parties.

 

Ha ha. Note I kinda like some Star Trek and SID music, but conventions and parties are meaningless.

[+wood_jl]

Conclusion:

atariksi 10 Wolfram 0

and the winner is: Atari 8-bit range.

Conclusion:

Jetboot Jack 10 Frohn 0

Atari 8-bit line wins (AGAIN).

Conclusion:

Irgendwer 10 Wolfram & Co 0

Atari 8-bit range scores again!

 

 

YEAH!!!! YOU GO, GIRLFRIEND!

 

OH MY GOD. Where on earth did you find such an offensive pic?

[atariksi]

sid vs pokey..

 

show me people going to parties to celebrate pokey music, to dance to pure pokey music:

 

That people doing stuff like that, does not mean SID is better. *DEEP SIGH*

 

If 1 million people say something stupid, it STILL is stupid. Do you get that?

 

If millions of people follow a certain leader, does this mean that this leader is good? History has proven the opposit.

 

You are using false arguments, to prove you are right. Please stop doing that. Thanks.

 

Yeah, it's like the Frog in the well argument-- *HE* hasn't seen POKEY being used in parties so somehow that gives C64 an edge??? I have seen POKEY music in background of title screens (which were also done with A8) in various home-made videos played at parties and other occasions. He has the same problem with graphics-- he sees some limited amount of imagery he hasn't seen on A8 so somehow C64 has better graphics. Sorry, let's see some deductive proof. Many people think better looking imagery is one with more shading. Overall mix of modes allowing you to select between higher resolutions vs. higher color content on a scanline basis is always better.

[Artlover]

all computers have different HW, still they can be compared.

 

xbox vs wii ?

 

Different hardware, different strengths. IMO the thread should be retitled to "apples vs. oranges".

 

done.

 

Yeah, pretty much with the same logic in how to do so and with the same meaningless results.

[emkay]

 

 

Resolution is not all.

This picture is the 1st you show, that does not cause eye cancer (the colours fit quite good to the presented image). Details were good, but there is again visual depth missing.

[atariksi]

There is a clear winner if you continue analyzing hardware aspects and not mix in some specific software (Atari BASIC) as other software can be written. You forgot about CPU speed, bootable system, timers, i/o speed, display list-based graphics modes/scrolling/mixing text/replication, overscan/narrow, etc. Based on an analysis of a few features, it would be hard to see a clear winner. Now the ability to combine all these features together in various combinations gives a greater flexible/more powerful system for Atari.

 

Oh boy... You don't understand. Both machines were designed for the masses, for consumers. If you want to compare them, you need to compare what both companies delivered to address those users. The average user did not write his or hers own BASIC. The average user run what they got, so yes, the BASIC does matter.

...

 

We're trying to decide which machine is superior not which sold more.

 

>The CPU speed is rather irrelevant. I'm not aware of a situation where this really matters, and using *this* as an argument is really pretty weak, excuse me. It's not that much of a big difference, and for the average user, namely the guy that either played games or wrote programs in BASIC, it didn't matter. Actually, Atari BASIC was quite on the slow side.

 

It's not weak. What would you rather have a 1.79Ghz machine or 1Ghz machine? And you can't bring in that some modes the DMA eats up some of the cycles because you do have the capability of doing things at 1.79Mhz-- it's an option not there on C64.

 

>DLI modes are "advanced hackery" - you should understand what the system was *designed for*, and not what you can achive with advanced hackery. In the same sense, C64 "raster interrupts" are advanced hackery, and apparently not quite as well integrated into the overall design as DLIs, due to the lack of a WSYNC register, resp. the HALT line of the Sally CPU. Yes, you can play such games on both machines, but that isn't an indicator for engineering quality. Engineering means finding the right compromises to solve the problem at hand. None of these modes were "engineered" into the system.

 

Atari has both the raster line interrupts and DLIs. They were integrated in most games for color changes or for sprite replication. I wouldn't call it "advanced hackery".

 

>Replication etc... nothing of that was really used a lot, nor is it overly useful, and taking that as a argument is again rather poor. I said that the Atari graphics playfield system is clearly more advanced, and this should be sufficient, and this implies support for hardware scrolling the C64 does not have. In the same sentence you forget the rather poor player/missle system of GTIA, BTW, and yes, it is really poor compared to the C64 sprites.

 

Line replication or lower resolutions help out when you have to do more computations in the background.

 

>No, I don't think the Atari *is* the more powerful system. Nor do I think the C64 *is* the more powerful system. Both system designs have good and bad parts.

 

I wouldn't say "bad"; both systems have their limitations. Atari has a different approach to graphics/text modes with a lot more options than C64.

 

>Wolfram said that apparently the capabilities of the Atari didn't create better games. Likely right, but one shouldn't forget that for an average gaming company, the pure hardware characteristics of a machine are irrelevant. How many units you sell is relevant, thus talented people are allocated to the more popular machine. And for the average customer, the average graphics capability is also irrelevant, but what was relevant is a) which machine do my friends have, and b) the price. And Atari apparently got b) too late, by that had trouble with a).

 

Marketing is a separate field from which machine is better. I was arguing from perspective of which machine is ACTUALLY better hardware and thus superior. It makes no difference to me which machine sold more and nor does it have any bearing on which machine is superior hardware.

 

>Thus, comparing the machines on the basis of the games available is probably a somewhat suitable measure for success, but tells not so much about the engineering but rather on the management of a company. Tramiel's fight by the price was, at that time, apparently a good decision, and created the user and the software basis to make it a successful machine. It didn't make it a *better* machine, which is quite a different quality measure - better as in "better engineering", I mean.

 

Okay so you do agree.

[Bryan]

I think its a very valid point. what most people like is usually a good thing, and what most peope dont prefer is usually a not so good thing.

 

I'm going to start calling this the Hannah Montana argument. Boy she's popular!

 

I have never heard of her. Never heard of atari 8 bits into the 90s either if we're at it.

Do a Google search. You'll be amazed.

 

She's good looking. Sings nicely. Acts on stage pro. etc. Not bad at all, the opposite: she's a pro. I can understand why many people like her.

 

here's what an avr. singer can do:

 

they would be not prefered by millions I can assure you, and rightfully.

 

conclusion: most ppl chose what is good, and not what is bad.

You heard it here first folks! C64 fans love Hannah Montana!

[atariksi]

With a several year advantage, and the rapid state of change in computing, C64 coming up a TIE in the best, very generous, case, isn't getting it done....

And it doesn't come close to tieing. As you agreed before, marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology. The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer.

Calling the c64 an 'inferior product' while labelling the Atari 'the best computing had to offer' is a pretty steep claim. (Just to be clear, you are talking about the Atari, right?). Perhaps you'll tell me you have proved this many times over in this thread?

 

And while you might argue that "marketing is a field by itself nothing to do with inferior/superior technology", when it comes to marketing technological products, you can bet the various technological strengths of those products are on the table to some degree at least - maybe they'll be distorted by the marketing, maybe many details will go over the consumers' heads, but the consumers are sure to have some interest in what they're getting for the money, and the marketers won't ignore that. In my case, I was all set to get a vic-20 (thanks to some guy at school trying to sell me his one) until I read some guff about the c64's 'arcade-like' sprites.

 

Mind you, I'd agree that the Atari doesn't come in a tie with the c64. It's good to see that we can agree on some things. (Warning: This is a light-hearted joke!)

 

As long as you don't resort to name calling and take back all your name calling, I'll reply to my factual claim: "The fact is C64 selling more means worse for the people in general since they are saturating the marketing with an inferior product and thus gave people less of a chance to get the best computing had to offer."

 

Interesting, trying to sneak in a fake win just by writing your machine is superior in the sentence. lol that's classic seriously. Inferior in what way? This thread is far from over..

 

In 1982...less memory, slower unmodifiable tape loaders, less sophisticate soundchip, less sophisticated sprites.

...

 

Atarian already answered your point regarding engineering quality. It's not a fake win; I also answered you several times but you never replied (or saw the replies). I did say the same earlier in the thread that Atari is overall superior hardware after doing many hardware comparisons (pages 1..114). I don't mind repeating, but you have not shown me that we are having a two-way conversation.

 

If I take a week off and the thread topic grows by 40 pages I don't read every single thing no true.

 

A8s have a less sophisticated soundchip (please don't make fools out of yourselves on this one, just read the technical specs for both chips and accept it once and for all)

...

And if you read my posts, I stated that SID has more hardware support for musical notes and POKEY has more hardware for multifreq DACs. If you don't have time to read the replies because you need to take a vacation for a week (or go place challenges on other threads), then that's not my problem.

 

>64k games that take 30 minutes to load from tape is not superior hardware in any way either.

 

>The player missile arrangement is an older technology and bigger compromise than sprites again simple plain facts.

 

Yes, C64 has wider sprites. In some cases A8 sprites are better. However, just repeating sprites for all other advantages A8 gives doesn't equal things out.

 

>I own an 800, 800XL, 130XE and 65XE...why would I want them to be rubbish? As I have said many many times I own ALL 8bit machines ever made available in europe, I have them here I have 1000s of games all over the house for them all. So why in gods name would I want the machine to be rubbish?

 

There are a lot more advantages on Atari 8bit hardware than C64 hardware; I never said A8 hardware is superior in all respects.