Is the C64 too different to A8 to ever have meaningful comparison?

[oky2000]

Before this topic degenerates into my computer is better than yours ner ner rubbish I will make it clear what I am asking.

 

1. I am NOT asking for your opinion of which is the better machine.

 

2. What I am asking is are the machines too different in the way they go about making games possible through different architecture and custom chips that put the emphasis on different areas of compromise.

 

It's like the baby brother debate as to the 16bit question was the Sega Megadrive/Genesis too different to the Amiga 1000/2000/500/600/CDTV chipsets.

 

Today you walk into a shop and you can buy an Intel Mac or Intel/AMD PC......the only hardware architecture difference is the logo of the chips on the motherboard. The only real difference is the OS.

 

For me the answer is yes they are just too different, and ultimately you bought the machine that did the better job of doing what YOU wanted it to do.

 

For the same reason you can't really compare a Sinclair Spectrum to a C64 or A8 either. All are compromises and have different strengths and weaknesses. Because there are certain sounds you can only get on Pokey and ditto for SID and there are only certain effects you can do on Atari due to larger palette and having 60 multiplexed animated bat sprites in hi-res as per the end of the Cauldron demo (forget the name). Trying to do one on the the other machine is not really possible because the circuitry is not there to allow those features. I can't get 16 shades of grey on a C64 I can't get 16 colours per scan line with zero CPU impact on A8,

 

But don't get bogged down by the technical differences just either agree or disagree they are very different methods of producing a similar sort of outcome technically. Different technical solutions if you lik. So for me it just comes down to games, and to be honest I like lots of games on both systems so it's not an issue. I don't think you can have a meaningful comparison because which is better always ends up being the one you want to do that specific thing that the other doesn't really do well due to the architecture of the machine and custom silicon specific functions/abilities.

 

Would you agree or do you think it is meaningful to compare them at the hardware level?

 

As I said, please no talk of ner ner A8/C64 is 'better' it is not about that, just about how different the machines are and if you believe they are truly too different to compare in reality.

[Heaven/TQA]

aehm. maybe too less coffe today but what do you want?

[Mclaneinc]

As a multi computer owner either at the time or now and the same with consoles you won't get any 'mines better than yours', I love them all. I used to sit on my Amiga looking at Super Mario World on the Snes and I was cock sure the Amiga could do that, it took a while to realise that perhaps its could make a reasonable bash at it but there's no way it could do it properly.

 

To be honest the public's perception of what the better machine is normally comes down to the rather dull and illogical 'how many games its got' which isn't the answer. If you look at the C64 and Atari you could probably knock out various pretty decent system special items but at the end of the day I agree its not really worth the comparison as you rightly pointed out that the reason you purchased your next machine was because you thought it could do what the last one could not.

 

For me I adore all the machines because of what they can do and not of what they might be able to sort of do.

[Rybags]

Different, maybe. But each machine makes up for certain shortcomings thanks often to program tricks or hardware exploits.

 

But we're talking 2 machines of dozens that at the time were intended mainly for home, education, gaming, hobbyists, small businesses.

Both machines have features that most of the competition didn't have but also lack features that some of the competition had.

 

Comparisons at a hardware level are relevant, but on the other hand there are some things that both machines can do but the level of effort required is sometimes inversely proportional between them.

[Heaven/TQA]

when reading Steve Jobs' biography I have to admit that f.e. Apple 2 seems to be a nice designed machine (referring to Woz talent) but I never thought that it would kick ass.

[Bryan]

I think they can be compared, it's just that you need some technical knowledge to really do it accurately and the winner will often depend on your priorities. I don't want to say they're all wonderful because there are some 8-bitters I think really suck. (however, not the two we're talking about)

[R4ngerM4n]

Atari rulez!

[flashjazzcat]

I do hope they're not too different to compare, since I'm relishing the thought of a direct comparison between GEOS and the new A8 GUI when it's done. Don't want to be done out of that opportunity... absolutely can't wait.

[oky2000]

aehm. maybe too less coffe today but what do you want?

 

Well I guess you could put it in context by saying that both machines produce very similar functions for the games programmer but achieve them through very different technical solutions.

 

PM graphics and sprites on the most simple level are the same thing, but once you get into the detail they work differently. Same with the way the screen is displayed and manipulated under these movable overlaid hardware graphic objects.

 

So my question is can you ever have a meaningful comparison from one to the other and get a general difference technically to compare. My view is the A8 does some things the C64 can not do in a game engine and vice versa. If you throw 90% CPU usage at a problem most can do something to overcome this (e.g. the various ways of getting images with an apparent higher total number of colours than the 16 set in the VIC-II hardware palette) etc

 

My view is they have approached the problem of making a games computer from opposite ends of the compromise using different technical solutions and somehow meet in the middle more or less.

[oky2000]

I do hope they're not too different to compare, since I'm relishing the thought of a direct comparison between GEOS and the new A8 GUI when it's done. Don't want to be done out of that opportunity... absolutely can't wait.

 

Oh I agree software can be compared But that usually leads to thread getting locked so we don't have a 480 page A8 vs C64 ner ner mine is better computer than yours and a picture of two versions of the same game. Even something as simple as a sound chip has a personal bias to which you prefer. I can think of 3 games where I prefer the Pokey/SID/YM chipset sound. I prefer the music of Xenon 1 level 1 on ST to Amiga for example, but this is subjective.

 

I was just thinking as far as both machines are concerned (and with all 8bit machines released) there is an element of compromise technically, Atari and Commodore (well MOS) engineers both chose different ways of excelling/solving different aspects of the requirements. Even in the 16 bit era we had 5 completely different architectures in the UK alone (PC AT/Mac/ST/Amiga/Archimedes) and the differences mean less because the CPU power to overcome design compromises increased. There was that excellent ST scrolling platform game from TCB I think, which really showed you didn't need hardware scrolling or blitter when an 8mhz 68000 is programmed to within an inch of its life etc.

 

In many ways the A8 vs C64 debate technically is a lot like the Amiga vs Sega Genesis/Megadrve method of creating a games machine.

[flashjazzcat]

Well, if there weren't differences in the platforms (different design decisions made for different reasons), the C64 and the A8 would be the same machine. So the uneven playing field idea holds some water, but only so much. I don't tend to scrutinize C64 vs A8 topics (and this stuff has been discussed to death a thousand times before in one way or another elsewhere, which ever way it gets dressed up), but I sort of gather they were competing for basically the same market share, even though A8 architecture is the oldest. So this is why the software is gonna be compared, whether anyone likes it or not, and how well software runs inevitably invites discussion of hardware limitations.

[+JAC!]

I think technical comparison is simple - and mainly useless.

Both are cool machines. I just bought a C64 and 1982 datasette two weeks ago - and an Atari VCS, too.

For me the point is to create something on those machine that has not been done before.

And then you can say "this is cool given the capabilities of the machine".

Having more than 8 sprites on C64 is cool, having more than 4 sprite on A8 is cool and having more then 2 sprites on VCS is cool.

But that does not mean 16 sprites on C64 are as cool as 8 sprites on A8,because they are simply different.

Now go and make a demo about it :-)

[Bryan]

Personally I think the only metric that matters is: was the machine innovative given its historical context? An amazing computer from 1980 would be a lame computer if it was introduced in 1985. The 800 broke new ground and so did the 64.

[emkay]

C64 and Atari 800 have only the CPU-type in common....

 

95% C64 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ9WtI8QtT4

 

60% A800: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZczYJ5q6qF4

 

 

 

 

[Heaven/TQA]

Koronis Rift uses more than 60% of the built in features. DLIs, Mode10/Mode9, Sprite Multiplexing, a lot of colors etc...

[emkay]

Koronis Rift uses more than 60% of the built in features. DLIs, Mode10/Mode9, Sprite Multiplexing, a lot of colors etc...

 

Koronis Rift doesn't use:

Colourful Title

Robot screen looks unfinished

Advanced POKEY sounds

Sprite Multiplexing, (just some reuse).

Speed optimised code (PAL machine runs slower as it should though) as it is just a cut down from "hi end" computers of that time.

 

 

 

 

[Bryan]

You know, the Lucasfilm games were more advanced than 95% of the other software at the time. They would have continued developing for the A8 if they hadn't discovered that Atari employees were leaking their unfinished games to the pirate community. Atari did not treat its developer community very well.

[potatohead]

Absolutely they can be compared. All that really needs to be done is to qualify the comparison. Best at, given X, for example.

 

Best at comparisons remain subjective, even with really tight qualifications, but the technical merits, means methods, etc... that result are always interesting and educational.

 

I really enjoy those discussions, because they nearly always drill down to exploiting the machine to marginalize differences found. Fun stuff.

[+Philsan]

A8 1979

C64 1982

[Gunstar]

You know, the Lucasfilm games were more advanced than 95% of the other software at the time. They would have continued developing for the A8 if they hadn't discovered that Atari employees were leaking their unfinished games to the pirate community. Atari did not treat its developer community very well.

 

I'm not so sure it's that simple, first, the Lucasfilm games were all pre-Atari Corp. I think, when warner still owned it, or where at least well into development or ready for sale when the Tramiels took over Atari. And Lucasfilm continued development on the ST line after that. Maybe they were giving Atari a second chance with the ST since it was under new ownership? But then wouldn't Lucasfilm have continued development for the XE line too? I think it was just a dying platform as far as Lucasfilm was concerned, the market was going 16-bit and if 8-bit development was to continue it needed to be on machines with a larger user base, like the C64.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Gunstar

[Bryan]

There was an interview with one of the Lucasfilm dev's who said they swore off the Atari after the demos leaked. They did end up porting some games to the ST, though. I'll see if I can find the quote.

[+rdemming]

There was that excellent ST scrolling platform game from TCB I think, which really showed you didn't need hardware scrolling or blitter when an 8mhz 68000 is programmed to within an inch of its life etc.

 

Actually, the TCB game (Enchanted Lands) used a side effect of toggling the graphic mode registers at certain positions of a scan line to achieve a form of hardware scrolling (in 16 pixel increments). However this requires precise timing and for horizontal pixel scrolling still multiple screen buffers. Also because the screen is scrolled instead of redrawn, you need to erase the sprite for the next frame and redraw it. I believe Enchanted Lands did this on the fly on the active screen taking into account the current position of the electron beam. Due to the difficulties to achieve all this (electron beam synchronised code), these techniques were mainly used in demos. A few games used it for vertical scrolling (which is much easier) like Lethal Xcess and Leaving Teramis. Because of the difficulties with hardware scrolling, Enchanted Lands is an incredible technical feat.

 

Anyway, I think every 8-bit/16-bit machine has its own charm. I like them all. With those machines you can hear from the sound or the look of the graphics which machine it is while nowadays all the machines sound and look the same.

 

Robert

[emkay]

There was an interview with one of the Lucasfilm dev's who said they swore off the Atari after the demos leaked. They did end up porting some games to the ST, though. I'll see if I can find the quote.

They got millions from Atari to create games...

And, I'm pretty sure that it is no random incident, that only the ego perspective games were released for the Atari.

It's all cheap excuses.

The mysterious Labyrinth.... everyone has a leaked demo ...

 

[JamesD]

I think they can certainly be compared but how do you compare them in a fair and objective manner?

Edited March 1, 2012 by JamesD

[oky2000]

I think they can certainly be compared but how do you compare them in a fair and objective manner?

 

This was kind of my thoughts. Some games are just better suited to one machine. Both machines excel at very different things, and struggle on others. What is easy for one is difficult for the other half the time. Better just means better suited to whatever type of game you are writing, it doesn't make it more powerful a machine overall.

 

It's like shadow of the beast and the amiga, there was never going to be a better version than the amiga in that year because it was designed for that machine architecture (also why gameplay is only average, it is a technical demo).

 

Also it should be pointed out that VIC-II and SID were finished in 1980 I believe, they were part of a prototype motherboard for arcade machines that Jack was thinking about expanding his business into the coin-op market. It got shelved but the chips were reworked into the C64 motherboard because the VIC-20 was never more than a delaying tactic to throw off the Japanese home computer makers.This is also why the C64 was one of the quickest machines from idea to first production runs in the history of computing.

 

I think you can compare them, but all you will ever find out is the difficulties/strengths each one has due to different design architecture. It will never tell you which is 'better' overall.

 

This is kind of the impression I got from the original 465 page A8 vs C64 epic thread, the first few pages were quite enlightening until it all descended into "my computer is better than yours ner ner" playground squabling

 

edit: I think the Commodore MAX came out in Japan before the C64 and yet apart from memory they are quite the same thing.

Edited March 1, 2012 by oky2000