Things you were jealous for in other 8-bit computers

[+wood_jl]

All the "Atari vs. Commodore" threads (genuine as well as impromptu) have me think, how about a reverse on this concept:

 

What GOOD things did the other 8-bit computers of the time have that you longed for with your Atari 800/XL/XE? We all know what we liked our Ataris for; no debate there.

 

Commodore:

 

Yes, the SID sound was great. Atari sound was very good, but I was surprised by SID sounds. Still hard to imagine listening to Atari AMS2 sounds with one less voice, though.

 

The many ports on the back of the C64 allowed for a cheap 1200 baud modem that plugged right in.

 

The Commodore 128 concept and delivery; I don't know much about this machine, except there was no Atari 8-bit counterpart, and if there was, I'd have bought one.

 

Numbers. It was always hard to find another Atari user in mid-80s high school but Commodore users found each other easily.

 

Apple

 

The expansion slots on the IIe. I never knew the joys of this until I plugged in my first Sound Blaster on my first early-90s PC. Meanwhile, Apple users had toys like the Novell AppleCat modem.

 

True, supported 80-column capability. (I never saw a Bit-3 in an 800, and the XL/XE line moved away from that solution, and XEP80 was a joke)

 

FAST floppy drives. Apple floppy drives were faster than anyone else's, by how much I don't know.

 

The Apple IIgs. Don't know much about this machine either, but would have bought one if there was an Atari counterpart!

 

Numbers. It was always hard to find another Atari user in mid-80s high school but Apple users found each other easily.

 

Any thoughts?

[Shawn Jefferson]

I can't say I ever missed any features of other computers. I didn't know enough about the technical differences between the different machines to really know what I was missing. What I missed was some ports of games that could have been better (Racing Destruction Set for instance) and some games that were never ported (Ultima V, GI Joe, etc..).

 

As for some of the things you mentioned:

 

Disk drive: I had a happy drive, so it was plenty fast enough.

Modems: I had a P:R: connection, so modems were no problem.

Expansion slots: never had a real need for them.

80 columns: would have been nice I guess, but by the time I really needed 80 columns, I was on the PC already.

Music: I was never a big chip-music fan, so didn't see that SID was all that much better than Pokey. I mean, they both beep and play music right?

[S1500]

As a TI-99/4A owner, I was jealous of all the other 8 bits for one reason: SUPPORT.

[AndyR]

I was lucky enough to grow up with both an Atari 800 and a CP/M box in the house -- a DEC VT180. Writing high school papers on a computer wasn't yet common, but of course being a geek that's what I did. The thing is, I wrote those papers on the Atari (using Bank Street, then later AtariWriter) mostly because I could, as a way of showing off. Once I was exposed to word processing on a 80 column blue-phosphor screen, I did it because I honestly wanted to use the tool.

 

I wish I could say I was using WordStar, but I wasn't. It was "Select", an otherwise forgettable product. But it taught me about what text editing should be, as opposed to what was possible on a TV. And although I didn't realize it at the time, learning the tool-composition model of command line use gave me a good background for jumping into Unix later in life.

 

Similarly, I wish I could say I learned something about hacking on CP/M or a Z80 at the time, but I can't. The thing was a total black box to me; all I wanted to do at the time was games and graphics.

[peteym5]

With Graphics abilities, the only feature I wish they improved on the A8 was the sprite abilities, like have 8 multicolor sprites per scan line. I can say color map or higher res, but with the TV being as the primary display device, it would not give it much better graphics. Maybe add more tricks for increasing onscreen colors with available CPU and Ram. 80 columns is nice, but if you were looking to do word processing or business like apps, a IBM-PC or clone, would have been more feasible even back in the early 80s. I think with a few extra features to the Antic/GTIA chipset would have made the A8 superior to the original NES or C64.

 

Sound abilities, just being able to modify the Pokeys' Square Wave would make it much better. More sound voices is always better for music and sound effects.

 

The A8s 1.79mhz clock speed was faster than either the C64 or Apple II, and seem to run faster than non 6502 based machines at higher speeds. It probably could have been pushed over 2mhz, but Atari would have to redo the graphics chipset to keep things in sync.

 

Higher density disk storage would help, surprised neither Atari or Commodore started using the same disk drives IBM started using.

 

Now I am using PCs, I am not jealous of anything because it blows any 8-bit graphics or sound system away.

[potatohead]

I really liked the Apple for it's expansion slots and great ROM. The thing came nicely documented, with a little assembler and debugger built right in! Was great for learning and hacking around. There is a lot of great programming tools for Apple, and expansion would make it a seriously good workstation. Of the 8 bitters, I considered it and a really tricked out CoCo as serious machines.

 

The Color Computer series had the 6809. It's just the best 8 bit CPU made, IMHO. Really liked programming on it. If you are running cassette, the CoCo has a great interface. It tolerates a lot, works with most ordinary recorders and does filenames. Since I started out as a cassette user, this was a killer feature compared to the Atari implementation. (playing music on slow ass tapes didn't help much!!) I also liked the DAC for sounds. Sure, it killed the machine, but if you just wanted to make fun sounds, it was kind of easy.

 

C64 had good color timing for the time. 320 pixel color graphics with few artifacts is sweet to have. IMHO, that was distinctive and something a lot of people noticed. Square pixels make a lot of things look better, or look good easier. SID is very cool too. Lots of great game tunes. Would have liked more of that on A8, but wouldn't want to give up the effects! That's an almost... I like game effects more than I do game music, that's why.

 

Documentation on Atari was rough early on. Apple ruled, Color Computer ruled, C64 solid, Atari got there, but not as quick as I would have liked. (Anybody that ships their computer with a schematic, just kicks ass. That's how it should be.)

[carmel_andrews]

Onl;y thing i am jealous off is, if atari had half the software support (in europe/Uk at least) as the speccy/c64 did, the a8 would have had a way decent software library

[+remowilliams]

As a TI-99/4A owner, I was jealous of all the other 8 bits for one reason: SUPPORT.

Exactly. Quite simply, as an A8 user during the heyday and declining years - the lack of publisher support just absolutely crushed me.

[drac030]

1) hard drive. Fast floppy is OK, but fast hard drive is better. ST is not "another 8 bit", but this is where I saw how cool it is. This finally resulted in what is known as KMK/JŻ IDE.

 

2) 80-column text mode and 640x200 pixel mode in Amstrad. This (and much more) is offerred by VBXE.

 

3) expansion slots. This is being worked on.

 

EDIT: and GS/OS in Apple IIgs. But IIgs is not exactly an 8-bit computer either.

Edited February 25, 2009 by drac030

[+Philsan]

C64's eight 24X21 (or 12x21 multicolor) sprites with high resolution on screen movement (320x200 pixels).

Edited February 25, 2009 by Philsan

[Rybags]

Apple expansion slots.

 

C-64 sprites and attribute RAM. Some of the qualities of SID.

 

BBC - the floppy disk speed. Possibly the fastest (default) of any 8-bit machine.

 

Vic-20 - The sales surge. How such a lowly piece of shit sold so many millions is a mystery.

[roland p]

I was only jealous about the software support of the C64

[+selgus]

That my Atari 800 only had 48K of RAM. That was almost 30 years ago, and now today my 130XE has much more... so no longer jealous.

--Selgus

[yorgle]

I grew up poking out music and silly text adventure games on my brother's c=64, and have only recently discovered atari 8bits. (Although we did have a 2600). One thing I can say for sure I WOULD have been jealous of, is the documentation that commodore provided. The programming manual that came in the box was at least an inch thick. Compared to the crap that Atari shipped with the xl computers, it's little wonder that they weren't taken more seriously. But to be fair, if I had seen a 1200xl back in the day, I would have been jealous of the Atari for it's looks alone! Even back then, I thought the 64 looked like a toy.

[Mirage]

Having a Vic-20 (NOT a lowly piece of sh1t!! ) and a C64: A separate box/keyboard like an IBM-PC. Hated that stupid raised keyboard of the breadbox 64, and also, having a separate box/keyboard just seemed so much more "serious"! And the way all the cables came out the sides and the back was so awkward. Even the Apple ][ was so much nicer in that regard.

 

Also, first wanted 40 columns (when I had the Vic), then wanted 80 columns once I had the 64.

 

A hardware speech synthesizer like some of the other machines had cheap. I had S.A.M., but that wasn't what I wanted.

 

Otherwise, I'm very happy I made the choices I did in the '80s. If I had had anything but a 64, I would have been lost, as I never knew anyone with an Atari, and only a few people with Apples or anything else.

 

And of course, I vaguely wanted a faster disk drive, but I was just happy to have one at all. Later, really wanted a hard drive.

[+Allan]

3) expansion slots. This is being worked on.

A 1090Xl clone? Or better? Cool.

 

Allan

[drac030]

A 1090Xl clone? Or better? Cool.

 

Shh, I am not allowed to say anything for now.

 

Otherwise, I think, these people who not only were, but still *are* jealous for better sprites, should get VBXE. The card is capable of doing an insane number of giant sprites, and "multicolor" in this case means 256 colours out of 2 millions.

[Ransom]

At the time, I didn't care about expansion slots. But I really wanted 80 column text like the Apple ][ (which is ultimately why I switched to a //c when it came out). Oh, and the sharp, clear output of the Apple ][ (which, of course, the Atari was capable of, if the video circuits hadn't been poorly designed and if monitors with separate luma/chroma input had been sold along side the Atari's as were the RGB monitors with the Apples).

 

I also wanted the more thoughtful, less action-oriented games that were available for the Apple ][. Some were available for the Atari, but most weren't.

[Warriorisabouttodie]

I knew other people that had Atari 8bit computers when I was growing up so that wasn't a big problem plus I was big into the bbs scene. I was jealous if you want to call it that of my childhood friends Apple IIe. The 80 column display made word processing more practical and he had a couple really nice monitors an Amdek color and Amber monochrome which were way better than what I used (a color tv which I had hooked in to the Atari through a VCR). As time passed I was jealous of c64 owners when all the good games moved to that system and the Atari 8bit disappeared from the shelves.

 

As far as capabilities go aside from the lack of cheap/mainstream 80 column support for the 8bit (and believe me I tried using the various hacks but they always hurt my eyes). I always found it's graphics/sound capability to be the top of the line for games. I realize SID is technically better, but Pokey is better for those old school games (since most used pokey's in the arcade) and there were few games on the Apple II that surpassed the 8bit Atari. It wasn't until the Amiga/ST computers hit the scene that I really wanted one of them and was jealous of the next generation of home computers increased capabilities.

Edited February 25, 2009 by Warriorisabouttodie

[UNIXcoffee928]

I had an 800. I followed the whole industry religiously. I was very happy with my choice in systems. 3rd party hardware developers made most of the add-ons that people are talking about above. Like any other system that I loved, the only thing that I ever wished for was more money to feed it.

 

When the Amiga 1000 came out, it was the next logical step. The only thing with that step was there was no Atari Emulation to retain backward compatibility. That would have been nice, and, in hindsight, a 1050 disk drive / SIO adapter to the A1000 would have been a lot more useful to me than the potential PC compatibility. There were C64, Mac, & PC emulators, even in the A1000 days.

 

Even still, I had no trouble transferring data via null-modem, and it actually was a fun project, back when I did the transition... Shortly after I had read & re-read & re-read Amigaworld's first issue over & over! Anyone else who had this experience probably remembers how exciting the prospects of the future were! The only other systems that I was so excited about were the SGIs, years later. The Atari 8-bits, Amigas, & SGIs were the only systems that I REALLY had to have. Nothing today, that I know of, breeds that same level of excitement.

 

So, in general, the only things that I think could have been better would have been heterogeneous interoperability tools that would have made data interchange seamless amongst varied manufacturers, ensuring better forward, backward, & cross-compatibility. I was always satisfied with the technical quality of the three above-listed systems.

 

Jealousy didn't really enter into the picture. What irks me is that the better technology tends to lose.

 

In the wake of the millions of dollars worth of advertising that thrusts inferior products into the buyer's imagination, the technically better product is simultaneously killed off.

 

So... if everybody has it, chances are good that it sucks... ha... & the technically superior product will eventually fail.

[+Larry]

A 1090Xl clone? Or better? Cool.

 

Shh, I am not allowed to say anything for now.

 

Otherwise, I think, these people who not only were, but still *are* jealous for better sprites, should get VBXE. The card is capable of doing an insane number of giant sprites, and "multicolor" in this case means 256 colours out of 2 millions.

 

I certainly will have my PayPal or whatever ready when VBXE becomes available for purchase!

 

I was definitely wishful for:

 

-multi-color text of the 64 and Apple, also (IIRC).

 

-Accelerators so as to "go fast" as for the Apple and then later the C64/128 (Maybe this will be *our* year!)

 

-SID (I have a dual SID cartridge) for my 64's.

 

-Multiple, colorful sprites.

 

-80 columns and Apple Works.

 

-the Speed of Apple's disk drives -- but not so much of a factor once we had hard drives.

 

A couple of these things can be done on our A8's, but generally it's a lot harder/more cumbersome to accomplish.

 

OTOH, I still think we have the best screen editor and OS, and some of the very best languages. And our 3rd party upgrades and accessories are DELIGHTFUL!

 

Incidently, to me it is interesting to look at the motherboards of the "Big 3." Apple clearly had the nicest boards; Atari a pretty close 2nd; and Commodore was the "Rear Guard."

 

-Larry

Edited February 25, 2009 by Larry

[sl0re]

Apple: Slots... we have a lot of half as*ed stuff on the atari since it had to go through SIO. Even 30 years later do we have a better serial solution than an Rverter (14.4 still going through the bit banging sio)? Also, like someone else mentioned, more nonaction games.

 

C64: Support... they had more stuff available.

[emkay]

C64 ... the analogue Filter

Amstrad CPC ... the clear coloured display and the 80 columns

[tjb]

I was always jealous of the seemingly large number of serious development packages for the C64 as compared with the Atari. I know we have quite a few languages and some great tools like Action! and Mac/65 but they had C compilers that generated true native code not some interpreted p-code. We do have the small-c derived CC65 from OSS but from what I understand it wasn't that great.

 

tjb

[TMR]

i wouldn't have said jealous as such, but as far as the 8-bits go the thing that made me change platforms was always sprites; i started without any on the VIC 20, got my 800XL a few years later... then i got to see what the C64 had on offer!