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

[TMR]

EG and CGW were two of the most important gaming magazines from the beginning (both started in 81), they knew their stuff

 

Important is relative... i've only heard of EG and CGW because you've mentioned them previously and since one of the few pages i've seen has a mistake... =-)

 

i'm still questioning that 16,000 releases bit as well; where exactly would the data come from to get that figure in the first place since that was before national distribution and, if there really was 16,000 releases by 1985 and presumably more after that point, why are the online archives not reflecting those figures?

 

Killer-app is a software which sells hardware (not a pack-in as in NES SMB or GB Tetris)

 

Pack-ins count as killer apps because they're just software that is desirable enough to shift hardware; Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 is widely considered to be the first gaming killer app and didn't stop being one when it was bundled with the machine.

 

The Spectrum being the dominant machine in UK, many software houses in UK could've convert softs to 48k A8 if they wanted to, but as Mathew Smith said (and Oliver twins), 'no monies in other platforms'

 

Porting Z80 to 6502 is a specialist job requiring a programmer able to work at least competently with both platforms, a skill set which was scarce in the 1980s. Converting rather than porting doesn't guarantee that the 48K Spectrum game you start with ends up as a 48K Atari game because it comes down to implementation.

[oky2000]

CGW is sort of like CVG for the USA, but it has a very different style and content. Read a few issues and there is a hell of a lot of Apple II stuff in there so quite interesting. All too quickly however the magazine goes nuts over that POS IBM XT so it's not going to be anywhere near as fondly remembered as CVG worldwide with exclusive Cinemaware features etc in the late 80s and coverage for proper home computers and consoles with 68k CPUs

[TMR]

I still feel that the cost of a 128 and any disk drive (even a 1541-II basic model) would never justify any game that even used the full potential of the machine, it's like a C64, a CPM machine and something with a bit of both thanks to the 1mhz VIC-II limit and totally unsuitable nature for the VDC to be used to do games like say Salamander.

 

But that's because it wasn't meant for those jobs; the VDC is there more for the CP/M and serious uses because the C128 wasn't pitched as purely a games system.

 

(the 2mhz in the border does help, about 25-20% speed increase as seen in Elite 128 in C64 mode right?).

 

On a PAL machine, about a third of the available time could be 2MHz so you're getting around 33% more time and it's during the part of the screen without DMA fetch too. But having that second wedge of 64K removes some of the need to be compact with code and data as well, so compressed levels can be expanded before use and large unrolled loops for scrolling can be employed, both of which speed up code as well.

 

And i've never really looked at the VIC-IIe in the C128 (i did some stuff with the VDC mode previously) but there's at least one fun, undocumented feature which alters the default palette that nobody has played with for games yet...

[oky2000]

One could argue that the C64's killer app was its low price. The games followed in ever increasing quantities once the numbers were there. It also didn't hurt that it had strong retail availability at places like K-Mart. Obviously there were low priced computers before that, from the Timex Sinclair 1000 to the VIC-20, but the C-64 had an amazing feature-set for the price that previous low-priced systems simply couldn't match. That was the killer combo.

 

Wizard of Wor conversion by Commodore straight onto cartridge at the start of the C64 lifecycle? But yes most 1983 games were HORRIBLE in extremis and even the Spectrum got a look in. The VIC on the other hand had some incredible Atarisoft and Sega cartridges for such a low end machine. Galaxian/Buck Rogers/Pole Position/Jelly Monsters(Pac Man)/Gorf etc.

 

Funny thing is I got my C64 in Feb 1983 but I couldn't tell you why I got it. It may actually be the first example of a machine I bought on technical specifications alone after reading about 20 different machines in issue one of The Home Computer Course.

[oky2000]

But that's because it wasn't meant for those jobs; the VDC is there more for the CP/M and serious uses because the C128 wasn't pitched as purely a games system.

 

 

 

On a PAL machine, about a third of the available time could be 2MHz so you're getting around 33% more time and it's during the part of the screen without DMA fetch too. But having that second wedge of 64K removes some of the need to be compact with code and data as well, so compressed levels can be expanded before use and large unrolled loops for scrolling can be employed, both of which speed up code as well.

 

And i've never really looked at the VIC-IIe in the C128 (i did some stuff with the VDC mode previously) but there's at least one fun, undocumented feature which alters the default palette that nobody has played with for games yet...

 

Ooooh do tell more sir!

 

One thing that still bugs me to hell is the 64kb RAM everyone remembers, they forget to mention that unless you use machine code you will get 2/3 of that and even in machine code, unlike some rival machines at the time, there is too much shadowing of ROM and RAM so isn't that absolute maximum about 53kb when using one single fixed screen location? Less if you double buffer anything.

 

Loading up a decent BASIC like Ocean's Laser Basic leaves you with 23kb...23kb!!! That's little more than my expanded VIC-20.

 

However there is one thing I do like about the C64, the way you can casually mix and match all manner of screen modes to the features so mixed mode sprites (multicolor spaceship with hi-res sprite shadow...multiplexed), 320 pixel width scrolling accuracy on 160 pixel double width multicolour mode bitmaps etc. Remembering all the locations to pokes however makes you feel like the police chief in Dark City (great movie btw) scribbling all those Dreamcast logos on the wall in the Asylum haha

 

Still I plan to finish my first C64 game by Xmas with some essential ASM bits to honour the VCS original I am porting

[high voltage]

Important is relative... i've only heard of EG and CGW because you've mentioned them previously and since one of the few pages i've seen has a mistake... =-)

.

 

You never knew of Electronic Games? Bill Kunkel, Arnie Katz and Joyce Worley? Man that was the main mag for console gaming (and computer). Been a reader since 1983 (and later the re-vamped version during the 90s with input from Digital Press). Those three knew their stuff (sometimes a mistake crept in, but very seldom and, at the time is just was gospel for gamers).

[high voltage]

Pack-ins count as killer apps because they're just software that is desirable enough to shift hardware..

 

 

If that is the case, then Combat is the first killer-app, according to Business is fun, the VCS shifted quite a few VCS/Combat versions. Sony's first console had no pack-in (some lousy Demo CD) and shifted squillions of hardware.

Edited August 12, 2013 by high voltage

[TMR]

Ooooh do tell more sir!

 

Well, now i've mentioned it twice in the space of a week i've just been wondering about actually implementing the colours... the short and currenntly uneducated version is that, by messing with the register that controls 2MHz mode, you can "skip" scanlines and change how the colour output works so the red and green values of a colour are swapped. The video isn't perfect because the tricks used apparently mess with the recording rig, but spin forwards to the ten minute mark in

and there are different palettes for the two images at the top and bottom of the screen (the change comes in late by the look of it). The VIC side of RFO only runs on a real machine still, VICE hasn't caught up with most of it.

 

One thing that still bugs me to hell is the 64kb RAM everyone remembers, they forget to mention that unless you use machine code you will get 2/3 of that

 

You get about 56K but i believe the variable space is in the other 64K bank so you get more of that 56K for yourself and a speed up to garbage collection into the bargain. How much free RAM is available on a 130XE to BASIC...?

[TMR]

You never knew of Electronic Games? Bill Kunkel, Arnie Katz and Joyce Worley?

 

i've never seen Electronic Games on sale and no, none of those names ring an immediate bell. Now Julian Rignall, Gary Penn, Gary Liddon, Gordon Houghton... heard of them! =-)

 

If that is the case, then Combat is the first killer-app, according to Business is fun, the VCS shifted quite a few VCS/Combat versions. Sony's first console had no pack-in (some lousy Demo CD) and shifted squillions of hardware.

 

 

Bad wording on my part and i blame it on a lack of caffeine and trying to draw graphics in 4:1 ratio pixels; i didn't mean that all pack-ins are killer apps, just that some can and do become one; Space Invaders is a killer app because it's estimated to have quadrupled Atari 2600 sales and a lot of that was when it shipped with the system, Tetris is the Gameboy's killer app, Wii Sports shifted bucketloads of Wiis...

[high voltage]

Bad wording on my part and i blame it on a lack of caffeine and trying to draw graphics in 4:1 ratio pixels; i didn't mean that all pack-ins are killer apps, just that some can and do become one; Space Invaders is a killer app because it's estimated to have quadrupled Atari 2600 sales and a lot of that was when it shipped with the system,

 

So you discriminate against some pack-ins?

 

Funny you quoted (and changed) my Wikipedia entry, actually I told this Retro Gamer years ago, and I got the info from Pac-Man & Co book, dated 1983.

This is correct:

The first generally agreed example of a "killer app" in gaming is Space Invaders, released for arcades in 1978 and ported to the Atari VCS (Atari 2600) console in 1980, quadrupling sales of the then three-year-old Atari 2600 platform.

OK some consider it still a killer-app when it becomes a pack-in, I don't, because from that point onwards the software is free.

To me, a killer-app is a 'bought' software, for which hardware was 'purchased', eg VisiCalc for Apple 2, businesses saw the ad for VisiCalc, and they got the software AND bought an Apple computer.

People saw Star Raiders (the starfield running on computer shops monitors ) and bought the cart and the computer, THAT'S killer- app

 

As for the ZZAP gang (I like 'em too), I give you that no-one in the States would have heard of them (Julian maybe, and that's a big maybe), but the EG gang was world famous.

Edited August 12, 2013 by high voltage

[high voltage]

Here's a meaningful comparison:

A8 Porsche, C64 BMW 3 series (another tidbit I passed on to RG way back)

 

Of course, the original article in ZZAP is better, but I'm not in the scanning mood.

Edited August 12, 2013 by high voltage

[kenjennings]

Star Raiders was my first killer app. Then later it was OSS carts ... BASIC XL and Mac/65.

[oky2000]

Well, now i've mentioned it twice in the space of a week i've just been wondering about actually implementing the colours... the short and currenntly uneducated version is that, by messing with the register that controls 2MHz mode, you can "skip" scanlines and change how the colour output works so the red and green values of a colour are swapped. The video isn't perfect because the tricks used apparently mess with the recording rig, but spin forwards to the ten minute mark in

and there are different palettes for the two images at the top and bottom of the screen (the change comes in late by the look of it). The VIC side of RFO only runs on a real machine still, VICE hasn't caught up with most of it.

 

Cool I will check it out

 

I remember reading about the C64 colour clock and how if it was 64 not 65 cycles you could have done FLI effects for palette effects much much easier and more convincingly one of the designers explained. Well that's the jist of what I got.

 

You get about 56K but i believe the variable space is in the other 64K bank so you get more of that 56K for yourself and a speed up to garbage collection into the bargain. How much free RAM is available on a 130XE to BASIC...?

 

Not sure about the RAM on the 130XE but the +4 has a lot more in BASIC than the C64 so for people writing their first games in BASIC it's pretty sweet.

 

(apologies in advance for now going massively off topic replying to the killer app comments, skip this if you like)

regarding killer apps and the 'rubbish PSX' I have to disagree....in the first year there was probably one copy of Ridge Racer sold for every console sold and the lightning fast Japanese version of Ridge Racer was the perfect "f^$k you" at the Mario/Zelda plinky plonk generation.....here was a game that had 3D visuals in high quality and even higher speed, it showcased that 3D arcade ports in good quality were here and PSX 3D hardware was just years ahead of home computers (and Sega's compromised Saturn conversion of Daytona with pop-up city). IMO this is far more impressive than the number of units of Combat out there as you had to own it. Combat is a nice game but the fact it is 2 player only is a pretty crap start to your video gaming world when your best friend is out at the swimming pool and your dad refuses to play Combat with you the day you get it out the box as soon as you get home. The pack in game should have been 1 OR 2 players not 2 player only IMO. It's a smart move though because clearly most VCS units were played alone by the little boy of the family like most 'toys' and as such you needed to get another game pretty sharpish. My second game I played was Space Invaders.

 

As for Star Raiders, a certain author of Future Wars (the Commodore book) was up all night many times playing Star Raiders on an Atari 800 before becoming employed by Lord Tramiel as his right hand man haha. I never had much of a go on that game on A8 but I did rush out and get the Video Touchpad + Star Raiders bundle on VCS and boy was that a lovely game.

 

Trivia-IBM Laptops of the Pentium 3 mobile era (T20-T23 etc) had that exact same alert noise when the battery was down to <5%. Pretty damned awesome to hear that for the first time as an engineer I can tell you, felt like I was back in the 80s with my VCS and portable telly in my room playing VCS Star Raiders with a bag of sweets on the desk.

[kenjennings]

If that is the case, then Combat is the first killer-app, according to Business is fun, the VCS shifted quite a few VCS/Combat versions. Sony's first console had no pack-in (some lousy Demo CD) and shifted squillions of hardware.

 

. . . i didn't mean that all pack-ins are killer apps, just that some can and do become one; Space Invaders is a killer app because it's estimated to have quadrupled Atari 2600 sales and a lot of that was when it shipped with the system,

 

Yes. A pack-in/freebie can be a killer app. Combat was it back when the 2600 appeared. One week Sears had a B/W pong system running in its electronic section and the next week it was Combat. In color. It made the same impression on me as a 10 yr old as people walking on the moon.

 

The N64 originally didn't come with any pack-in. But it flew off the shelves here in Miami with its two launch titles.

[TMR]

Other people are taking care of the "pack-ins as killer apps" side of things so i'll leave them to it (i really need to get these graphics i've drawn installed or my ABBUC entry is going to start running even later than it already is!) but...

 

As for the ZZAP gang (I like 'em too), I give you that no-one in the States would have heard of them (Julian maybe, and that's a big maybe), but the EG gang was world famous.

 

...just for fun i tried searching for their names on the Retro Gamer forums, after all "world famous" includes the UK; Bill Kunkel fared best although most of the 17 hits were about his passing and the piece marking it in the magazine, but Arnie Katz appears five times (four from an American member and the other quoting his post) and, on an international forum with 890,000 plus posts and members all over the world including the US, Joyce Worley had no mentions at all. "World famous" does seem to be pushing it a little... by that definition, i'm world famous! Where do i sign up for my groupies? =-)

[oky2000]

As for the ZZAP gang (I like 'em too), I give you that no-one in the States would have heard of them (Julian maybe, and that's a big maybe), but the EG gang was world famous.

 

Maybe not from ZZAP but certainly many people would have known about Mean Machines and Mean Machines Sega magazines he ran even if they were UK magazines. And of course IGN.

[oky2000]

i'm world famous! Where do i sign up for my groupies? =-)

 

I'm infamous on the WWW then, does that mean I only get cyber groupies?haha

 

The Porsche vs BMW....well if you take the Boxster S vs the Z4 3.5 then I quite agree with that analogy

[+wood_jl]

Of course they can be compared!!! The notion that they can't be is ridiculous, as they were direct competitors!

 

Like everything else in life that competes, each had advantages and disadvantages. They've been discussed so much that there's no need to go into them here.

 

But "can't be compared" because they're different? How about some other industry, where different technologies compete? Ford and Toyota use overhead cams in their half-ton pickup engines. Chevy and Dodge use pushrods. Oh! They're different! Shall they be compared? OF COURSE! They're competitors. Competitors are *always* compared, by virture of the fact that they are competitors. To assert otherwise is fantasy.

[bills442]

figure I'll put in my $02. I owned a vic-20 and then an a800. Star Raiders literally sold the a800 to me. I saw that in the mall , and had to have it.

I was very jealous when the c64 came out ... not because I didn't like my atari anymore (I loved it) but I did know enough to recognize it could do things my a800 could never do. having twice the number of sprites, that were each twice as big is a pretty obvious difference. To me, they cannot be compared, too different. In my mind the Atari came out in 1979, I don't care that marketing fools re-branded the computer and put it in a new case later. The simple matter is you are comparing a 1979 computer against a 82 ( 83) whenever the c64 came out. The c64 is a much newer platform. The Atari was incredible for the time period it was released. fyi, today I own an 800xl and several vic20s ... i may get a c64 soon too I should also add, I do get endless enjoyment from the atari vs c64 threads, so I would never discourage them from being compared .. I just don't think I would ever participate ... but I do love spectating.

Edited August 13, 2013 by bills442

[carmel_andrews]

That's how things go if you've got more than one memory configuration though; Commodore didn't fare any better, there are far fewer expanded games for the VIC 20, the C16 took the lion's share for the 264 series and the C128... just ouch, really.

 

 

 

i've said it before and will repeat it just because it still bemuses me a bit; i don't get why things just died out around 1984/5; when the same happened to the Plus/4 or C64 there were people just teaching themselves and each other how to code to knock out fun little games to sell to each other, did this not happen with the A8...?

 

Is that scan i'm not going to quote for brevity of the Computer Gaming World article right (the circular boxout in particular) because i thought the A8 series had already got a good head of steam well before 1983? And there's still no sign of the 16,000 titles mentioned in that 1985 article...

 

 

 

 

At least the C-128 got more support then the 130xe did (i.e. more 128k titles)...also it was a nice machine (though i didn't own one)

 

Also TMR, I think you know as well as I do, about 1985/6 the software market (in the UK at least) had pretty much decided which 8bit systems were going to get the support (namely the sinclair/commodore systems) and basically carved the market up for themselves whilst i accept that the st/amiga systems did get a look in, it would'nt be for long since the pc would soon make it's presence felt (i.e vga and windows etc)

 

If we had the sort of 'homebrew' activity as we have now, perhaps independent publishing and development might have taken some of the market away from the big boys (i.e activision and EA in the US and USG/Ocean etc in the UK), since that might have encouraged more support for the minority systems like Atari, Amstrad, BBC, MSX etc

 

 

PS, where's the 'groupies' you made mention of, or are they saying "we're not worthy"

Edited August 13, 2013 by carmel_andrews

[pixelmischief]

Is it true that titles on the Atari were deliberately stunted because of either the need to support every machine, all the way back to the 400, or because Commodore actually paid developers to so? Or are those just rumors?

[carmel_andrews]

I've heard of Julian Rignal...He worked on newsfields multi format magazine (TGM) and also Gary Penn...and i ain't into commodore

 

You could also add, Julian Golner, Richard Montiero (hope i spelt the surname right), Mel Croucher and Derek brewster (who co founded Zeppelin games)

[Bill Loguidice]

Is it true that titles on the Atari were deliberately stunted because of either the need to support every machine, all the way back to the 400, or because Commodore actually paid developers to so? Or are those just rumors?

 

The market was not like it is now (it's also important to remember that Atari, Mattel, Coleco, Magnavox, etc., made plenty of multi-platform titles, unlike today when you wouldn't see Nintendo, Sony, Apple, or Microsoft doing the same; back then it was important to maximize profits in a fledgling, fragmented market). There was no need to pay developers for exclusivity, and Commodore of all companies wouldn't have done it. They barely (and sometimes not, famously) paid out on the contracts for the software they sub-licensed, like the Infocom or Scott Adams stuff. The Atari 8-bit series' relative failure in comparison to the C-64 was nothing more than the standard memory differential and high price. The latter point made the Atari 8-bits particularly unappealing outside the US where price sensitivity was much higher. That's part of the reason why the ZX Spectrum was so successful in the UK, for instance, and also part of the reason why cassettes lasted years longer than they did in the US, when we switched to disks almost exclusively by the mid-80s.

[Magic Knight]

Interesting note is that for both Atari and commodore users (in the uk) the disk market was largely dominated by cassettes. Even when companies like Microprose and US Gold (Access distrubuter) put disks out in the uk - many high street outlets only stocked cassette due to the low demand.

 

Virgin (Richard Bransons chain) and specialists were the far and few between who had plentiful disks in the shops. Like infocom and SSI titles - I remember thinking that my £5 a week pocket money would need to be saved up for 8 weeks to afford 'Carrier Force' and i dont have the patience! (£2 titles like Mastertronics range was a godsend for a 11 year old)

 

Mail order was to some the only way to get Bruce Lee on the 5 1/4 floppy for many. (now ebay )

[TMR]

Also TMR, I think you know as well as I do, about 1985/6 the software market (in the UK at least) had pretty much decided which 8bit systems were going to get the support (namely the sinclair/commodore systems) and basically carved the market up for themselves

 

Yes but that wasn't really what i was talking about; in the mid 1980s it was still possible to start a small one or two person software "company", write new games and sell them in the specialist press; the results were going to look less professional with black and white photocopied inlays and hand-duplicated media but Llamasoft's first releases looked a bit like that as well and support for a machine is support regardless of how the packaging looks.

 

PS, where's the 'groupies' you made mention of, or are they saying "we're not worthy"

 

i have been looking for groupies for years because i figured it'd be easier than becoming rich or famous... never feckin' works. =-(