Why C64 and not Atari XL/XE?

[BillC]

 

Oooh. I don't agree with that. I can name a few. Halo for XBox was a a system seller. Resident Evil Remake sold an enormous number of Gamecubes. Super Mario 64 was a must have. Donkey Kong for the Colecovision was flagship. Any of those games was enough reason to get their respective consoles.

And Star Raiders sold a lot of 400/800s as well!

[TMR]

The code being so close to the hardware seemed to make all the difference. There weren't multiple layers to dig through, there weren't other programs that had to wait or get interrupted, there were no bits of hardware to "sync-up". Cycles weren't consumed doing ambiguous and frivolous things. DOS and BASIC and the MONITOR weren't busy babysitting custom chips or bit-mapped text screens.

So which 8-bits suffered from these issues exactly...?

[Keatah]

Any other 8-bit. I always felt Apple II series stood alone in the simplicity and elegance of not only hardware but the interaction of the various bits of firmware and code.

 

The 810 and 1541 need power supplies and onboard firmware with processors and are serial. All the things that make for slower I/O. Just look at the chipcount for the Disk II subsystem vs any other 8-bit. And I can only imagine what a kludge the amiga drives and ti99 drives were.

 

An amiga floppy could spend a whole 3 seconds just getting up to speed and ready to access something - prior to moving the head into position over a specific track. Apple never wasted time doing that.

[Bryan]

Any other 8-bit. I always felt Apple II series stood alone in the simplicity and elegance of not only hardware but the interaction of the various bits of firmware and code.

 

The 810 and 1541 need power supplies and onboard firmware with processors and are serial. All the things that make for slower I/O. Just look at the chipcount for the Disk II subsystem vs any other 8-bit. And I can only imagine what a kludge the amiga drives and ti99 drives were.

 

An amiga floppy could spend a whole 3 seconds just getting up to speed and ready to access something - prior to moving the head into position over a specific track. Apple never wasted time doing that.

Yeah, but the idea was that the complete novice could bring it home from the store, connect it to his TV and add peripherals without having to open anything, directly handle any electronics, mess with ribbon cables, etc.. The Apple was by a computer hobbyist, and for the computer hobbyist. The Apple was brilliantly simple, but the Atari was brilliantly friendly.

[Keatah]

True. I remember doing my first upgrades in terror..

 

1- RF Modulator

2- Disk II subsystem

3- 16K Microsoft Ramcard

 

And only much later did I feel at ease with opening up the system and not blowing stuff up. Yep. I pulled cards out and shorted things to the point where I had to take it to a more experienced technician than myself (I was still playing with batteries and flashlights).

 

Never had that problem with Atari or C64 or other consumer oriented connectors.

[dougal22]

I live in Malta and my very first computer was an Atari 65 XE which was around 1990/1991. It was awesome, I still remember the red label cassettes that came with it which had game compilations and I had some other games like Henry's House, Ninja Commando, Joe Blade II, James Bond (that sucked) etc on cassette tapes and then had Pac-Man, Tennis, Pitfall II and Mario Bros on cartridge. Also had two 7800 joysticks. I loved it but I was always secretly jealous of my Amiga owning friends and got my parents to buy me an Amiga 500 Plus in 1992. 

 

I would say the C64 was better supported also because it came out with 64KB ram, no less. Granted it came out a couple of years after the Atari 800 when ram was more affordable but still, developers would have probably been making games to support the minimum spec 16K Atari whilst games for the C64 were developed for a 64K machine - The result better looking games and I am sure that helped sell more systems. Also, when comparing specs especially that 64K ram I believe the C64 was cheaper than the competition. 

 

The 8 bit Atari's are very solid machines but then so are the C64's though many these days seem to suffer failed PLA's and SID's which is a shame. I got back into Atari 8 bit in the last year or so, I resurrected an Atari 600 XL I had for ages and upped it to 64KB but for some reason although games on cassette and cartridge work fine for some reason floppy disk does not work using SIO2SD so I bought a 65XE (Yayy just like 1991) and that is great aside that I had to change some custom chip which is prone to failing and affects the graphics in a small percentage of games (i forgot the name of the chip).

[Mclaneinc]

 

Ah Malta, lovely place, had 2 great hols there doing all the tourist stuff like the Popeye village etc but lovely and quiet when you wanted it..

 

There's many chats about why machines were supported better and they often turn into us vs them which I detest as an Atari freak AND a C64 freak, Atari got to me first but as time moved on I also got a C64 and I don't regret it for one second. I just love looking at the way games can vary from title to title, say Dandy, compare the two titles on the machines and there's a BIG difference but they both play well.

 

Of course having lots of ram is always a good thing but with the Atari you had to cater for the 16K initial machines as a dev otherwise you lost a small but fruitful lump of custom. The C64 never had that issue, it landed with 64K.

 

I say this to all people, don't be a total fanboy, there's stuff out there on many machines that is extremely fun and playable, sure, have a first love and enjoy it but look around as well, a C64 is a wonderful companion to an Atari in my book.

 

Paul.

[Gunstar]

1 hour ago, Mclaneinc said:

 

Ah Malta, lovely place, had 2 great hols there doing all the tourist stuff like the Popeye village etc but lovely and quiet when you wanted it..

 

There's many chats about why machines were supported better and they often turn into us vs them which I detest as an Atari freak AND a C64 freak, Atari got to me first but as time moved on I also got a C64 and I don't regret it for one second. I just love looking at the way games can vary from title to title, say Dandy, compare the two titles on the machines and there's a BIG difference but they both play well.

 

Of course having lots of ram is always a good thing but with the Atari you had to cater for the 16K initial machines as a dev otherwise you lost a small but fruitful lump of custom. The C64 never had that issue, it landed with 64K.

 

I say this to all people, don't be a total fanboy, there's stuff out there on many machines that is extremely fun and playable, sure, have a first love and enjoy it but look around as well, a C64 is a wonderful companion to an Atari in my book.

 

Paul.

My sentiments exactly regarding the two machines, though I didn't own a C64 until around the early 2000's. But in the U.S., when it came to disk based games, as tape based games were phased out almost completely by the time the 600/800XL were released, it was catering to a minimum of 48K rather than 16K, if you didn't upgrade a 400/600XL to 48/64K it was tough-luck for you, since you needed more than 16K to use a disk drive anyway. But that still makes a big difference, though there were a number of XL/XE only 64K games on disk, it was like 5-10% I guess.

Edited July 20, 2019 by Gunstar

[Preppie]

I got a zx81 for xmas '81 and soon upgraded to the Atari 400.  At the time my only other option was Vic-20, the zx spectrum had just been released but was mail order only and waiting weeks for delivery was a lifetime for a 14 year old especially as I would have to sell the zx81 first and be computerless while waiting for delivery.

 

After xmas '83 I had enough cash for an upgrade, I had to choose from Atari 800 or the C64 (I can't remember why the 800xl wasn't an option, I'm guessing the 800 was discounted).  After many hours pouring over the specs I couldn't see a solid reason to go for the C64.  I loved the Atari 400, and I had a bunch of software for it, so the C64 had to be a clear winner for me to swap - but it wasn't.  So on 7th Feb 1984 I got an Atari 800, I still have the receipt

 

Last week I finally got a C64.  I have no software, I need to get an SD card adaptor, so after checking it worked I packed it back up in it's box.  Also got a SNES and a Mega Drive, I've fallen down a rabbit hole lol

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by Preppie

[+DrVenkman]

7 minutes ago, Preppie said:

Last week I finally got a C64.  I have no software, I need to get an SD card adaptor, so after checking it worked I packed it back up in it's box. 

Having just gone through this recently, take my advice: if you’re using the original C64 black power brick, be very, very wary. I had one fail while it was in storage the first time I plugged it in and turned on the machine. It killed two 4164 DRAM chips, at least one of the MOS 7708 memory multiplexor chips, the PLA chip and the SID. When I unplugged the computer I realized the brick was super hot on the outside of the case. I measured it at 127 degrees F! ? This is, evidently, a common cause of failure in old C64’s. So get or make a replacement PSU in lieu of the original before it fails and kills your machine. 

[Mclaneinc]

Didn't know of the failure issue, heard more of the Atari PSU woes, will have to check the PSU's I have for my C64's..So Thanks Doc

 

As for you preppie, that's a nice little treasure trove although I must admit I don't really like hearing people say "I know it works so I'll store it now", I so want to hear about people using these things....My little retro collection of assorted consoles and computers does get use, maybe not every day or week in some cases but they ALL get turned on and played in a month, the snes not as much as I'd like because when the Snes was given to me out of the blue it came with a Wild Card (copy / play device) and no actual physical carts so I have to dig out the 3.5 floppies for the drives in a huge set of boxes which is so awkward.. 

 

I'd love to get some good old carts back but the games I love that I used to own are going for SILLY money...aint nobody got time for dat...

 

I could get a Snes Mini but its all emulation which I already have...

 

Anyway, give them all a play....

 

Paul..(don't forget the Atari tho)

[shoestring]

 

Quote

Why C64 and not Atari XL/XE ?.

 

Why not both and an Apple IIe to go with it.. or whatever else it is you enjoy. I recently went to a demo party and there were people there busy coding to get their comp entries finished on time. There were guys doing interesting stuff on their c64s, PCs, Amigas,  Macs,  2600s and even Amstrad CPCs. Was great to see the collaboration between all the different groups of people and share experiences.

 

1 hour ago, DrVenkman said:

Having just gone through this recently, take my advice: if you’re using the original C64 black power brick, be very, very wary. I had one fail while it was in storage the first time I plugged it in and turned on the machine. It killed two 4164 DRAM chips, at least one of the MOS 7708 memory multiplexor chips, the PLA chip and the SID. When I unplugged the computer I realized the brick was super hot on the outside of the case. I measured it at 127 degrees F! ? This is, evidently, a common cause of failure in old C64’s. So get or make a replacement PSU in lieu of the original before it fails and kills your machine. 

 

All Commodore power bricks will fail eventually and should be binned or rebuilt. I rebuilt my OEM power supply and added an overvoltage protection circuit with a fuse so it can't happen again. At least not from the power supply itself.

 

 

[dougal22]

3 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

Having just gone through this recently, take my advice: if you’re using the original C64 black power brick, be very, very wary. I had one fail while it was in storage the first time I plugged it in and turned on the machine. It killed two 4164 DRAM chips, at least one of the MOS 7708 memory multiplexor chips, the PLA chip and the SID. When I unplugged the computer I realized the brick was super hot on the outside of the case. I measured it at 127 degrees F! ? This is, evidently, a common cause of failure in old C64’s. So get or make a replacement PSU in lieu of the original before it fails and kills your machine. 

I use a Ray Carlsen '64 Saver' - Basically it connects between the PSU and the C64 and it monitors and protects the C64 in case of PSU failure. So I am still using the original PSU.

[+CharlieChaplin]

9 hours ago, dougal22 said:

I would say the C64 was better supported also because it came out with 64KB ram, no less. Granted it came out a couple of years after the Atari 800 when ram was more affordable but still, developers would have probably been making games to support the minimum spec 16K Atari whilst games for the C64 were developed for a 64K machine - The result better looking games and I am sure that helped sell more systems. Also, when comparing specs especially that 64K ram I believe the C64 was cheaper than the competition. 

 

The 8 bit Atari's are very solid machines but then so are the C64's though many these days seem to suffer failed PLA's and SID's which is a shame. I got back into Atari 8 bit in the last year or so, I resurrected an Atari 600 XL I had for ages and upped it to 64KB but for some reason although games on cassette and cartridge work fine for some reason floppy disk does not work using SIO2SD so I bought a 65XE (Yayy just like 1991) and that is great aside that I had to change some custom chip which is prone to failing and affects the graphics in a small percentage of games (i forgot the name of the chip).

 

Yeah, the Atari publishers almost always supported the older 48k machines, so games required to work with 48k RAM. There were some A8 games that did require the full 64k RAM, but they were in the minority in the 80s, more than 90% targeted max. 48k RAM. In the end we Atari owners were happy when we got a conversion and enthusiastic if it was a good one...

 

Besides, the problem with the 600XL not loading disks correctly might be because of its OS - XL-OS Rev. 1, most 600XL came with it (and even a few 800XL computers), while the later standard for XL/XE computers was XL-OS Rev. 2. There are several commercial disks that require XL-OS Rev. 2 and will not work correctly or not at all with Rev. 1, so changing the OS may help, in case you still have the 600XL. (In the 90s I visited a friend and we wanted to play a dozen or more of the newest commercial games from Poland on his 64k/1064 upgraded 600XL, alas, almost none of them worked, since he had XL-OS Rev. 1; luckily I brought my 800XL with XL-OS Rev. 2 with me and there all games did work fine.)

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by CharlieChaplin

[Lost Dragon]

I will add my personal experience of the C64 power brick to the warnings. 

 

 

I had heard a lot of talk about them being dodgy when my folks bought me my bread bin model 64 and always considered it mere talk...

 

Until mine melted into a foul smelling puddle of black goo ?

 

 

[Mrarkus]

My 8-bit corner always has an 800XL and a C64 set up (with a PS from Ray Carlsen as well - the originals are computer killers!!). Since Commie was my first computer, I used it a lot more back in the day, so nowadays the 800XL gets most of the love as there's still so much I discover with it, and the large color palette is pretty awesome. 

 

As far as support back in 1980s, being in Chicago 'burbs we had three neighborhood computer stores I frequented and bought everything from. Not one of them had much of the Atari 8-bit stuff, and all the store staff was very much all Commodore.

 

Once ST and Amiga came out though, they got pretty equal space, and I got myself a shiny new 520ST, but that's a different forum...

[kiwilove]

I did own/use a C-64 back in 1988 for about a year - and it was a pleasant experience - starting with a cassette system, then onto a disk drive with AR2 cart - otherwise I could not put up with the slow disk drive.

I think it was a type in drawing program that I used for the drawings below - my only artwork on the C-64.

It wasn't a commercial program, and I think I typed it in?

 

I was always short on money, so I ended up selling it so as to move onto 16-bit computers and consoles.

 

Harvey

[shoestring]

On 7/21/2019 at 2:01 AM, dougal22 said:

I use a Ray Carlsen '64 Saver' - Basically it connects between the PSU and the C64 and it monitors and protects the C64 in case of PSU failure. So I am still using the original PSU.

 

Wish we had those back in 86. I do clearly remember my next door neighbour exchanging their c64c model about 5 or 6 times before they got one that did not die.

 

It was in the middle of summer. In hindsight,  I think it was the power supply that failed and most likely took the machines out in the process. Power supply was one of those white bricks with the C= logo embossed on the top of the casing. Pure evil.

 

 

Of course, I had the bread bin which came with the more durable power supplies made by Futuretronics. ( C= on top , Atari XL/XE below ).

 

 

 

[Mclaneinc]

Urgh..Resin incases PSU's the thing of nightmares, utterly STUPID idea and done for money, its not like dongles etc where they may have an eprom or custom chip (rarely) that they want to copyright protect. In a PSU its just beyond silly. I may get replacements for my original PSU's at some point, if anyone knows a UK seller of half decent stuff then please let me know...

 

Cheers..

 

Edit: Just looked on ebay but its hard to tell what the ACTUAL quality is like, hence the ask to our people...

Edited July 23, 2019 by Mclaneinc

[+DrVenkman]

I bought a “bare bones” PSU from Ray Carlsen. It’s literally two modern PSU’s wired to a single DIN for the 9VAC and 5VDC. Bare bones indeed but it works! I would have made one myself but I absolutely hate soldering DIN jacks. 

[krslam]

1 hour ago, Mclaneinc said:

Urgh..Resin incases PSU's the thing of nightmares, utterly STUPID idea and done for money, its not like dongles etc where they may have an eprom or custom chip (rarely) that they want to copyright protect. In a PSU its just beyond silly. I may get replacements for my original PSU's at some point, if anyone knows a UK seller of half decent stuff then please let me know...

 

Cheers..

 

Edit: Just looked on ebay but its hard to tell what the ACTUAL quality is like, hence the ask to our people...

Per Bil Herd, the epoxied PSU was a safety feature intended to prevent the units from catching fire.  It wasn't for any sort of proprietary reason.  Still a bad idea, though.

 

[MrMaddog]

On 7/20/2019 at 7:17 AM, Mclaneinc said:

 

There's many chats about why machines were supported better and they often turn into us vs them which I detest as an Atari freak AND a C64 freak, Atari got to me first but as time moved on I also got a C64 and I don't regret it for one second. I just love looking at the way games can vary from title to title, say Dandy, compare the two titles on the machines and there's a BIG difference but they both play well.

...

 

I say this to all people, don't be a total fanboy, there's stuff out there on many machines that is extremely fun and playable, sure, have a first love and enjoy it but look around as well, a C64 is a wonderful companion to an Atari in my book.

Yeah there's times where you have to put fanboism aside and get a machine that's more popular in order to play the most games.

 

Growing up I had an Atari 130XE computer, which was very hard to find software for w/o going through mail order, and a NES for games that are not only easier to get but also available for rentals.  Had Nintendo not became as popular in the States I probably would have gotten a C-64 as a games machine, but I doubt my parent would let me have two computers at the same time.

 

Nowadays you can have more than one system but back then if you were a kid you couldn't...

 

 

[Mclaneinc]

10 minutes ago, krslam said:

Per Bil Herd, the epoxied PSU was a safety feature intended to prevent the units from catching fire.  It wasn't for any sort of proprietary reason.  Still a bad idea, though.

 

 

Ah thank you, that's quite interesting...An odd choice used by few....You PSU stays semi intact (but useless) while your machine instead catches fire

[Mclaneinc]

1 minute ago, MrMaddog said:

Yeah there's times where you have to put fanboism aside and get a machine that's more popular in order to play the most games.

 

Growing up I had an Atari 130XE computer, which was very hard to find software for w/o going through mail order, and a NES for games that are not only easier to get but also available for rentals.  Had Nintendo not became as popular in the States I probably would have gotten a C-64 as a games machine, but I doubt my parent would let me have two computers at the same time.

 

Nowadays you can have more than one system but back then if you were a kid you couldn't...

 

 

 

Thankfully I was a little older and working at that point (selling Atari's) so I could have as much as I could afford which wasn't a great deal considering the HUGE price of the machines but as a child it would have been murder to see other machines getting stuff while your one was hard to get stuff for...As a parent the idea of two machines for the house would have been a simple NO due to costs..

[José Pereira]

On 7/21/2019 at 11:22 PM, kiwilove said: