Commodore 64 VS Atari ST

[carlsson]

In the analog real world, do you find anything besides a few overpriced Nintendo games? Perhaps at a retro gaming exhibition, and at those I've been to, you relatively speaking find 5 or 10 times as many items for the Commodore 64 than you'll ever find for the Atari ST and related series. YMMV a lot though, depending on where you live and which places you visit.

[Opry99er]

Overpriced NES games.... LOL

 

There is a local shop where I live that wants $10 for a Mario/Duck Hunt, $20 for Faxanadu, and $25 for Contra.

 

Whatever...

Edited April 12, 2015 by Opry99er

[+OLD CS1]

I have run into people like that at flea markets and swap shops. One guy had 22 ColecoVision games at a flea market which was just storage opened up for market. I had $30 in cash on me and offered it up for all of them, as-is, untested. He says to me, "I dunno, I bought them all brand new 20-some years ago. I couldn't let them go for less than $2 each." Frankly, I could not give two shyts who bought them brand new and when -- they had to be bought brand new at some time in history. Not to mention sitting in storage, unprotected from the elements, no books, no boxes, labels in varying conditions of rot. I got cash, right now, buddy.

 

Went by two years later right before the flea market shut down... yup, all of them still there. Probably wound up in the dump. Asshole.

[mehguy]

ohh you guys havent seen what ive been through at flea markets. some guy had a huge selection of games but they had no price tag on them, which i found odd. the reason there are no price tags because he makes up the price on the spot depending if he thinks if you actually know market value or not. like he goes on ebay and checks what the highest price for a game is (ignoring if its sealed or not) and charges fucking "shipping" when theres NOTHING to ship. so i asked him about a couple games, he was charging like almost 10 times the market value!

 

 

 

but you know, obviously some 14 year old isnt gonna know the prices on this stuff.

Edited April 13, 2015 by mehguy

[+OLD CS1]

Yup. There is a guy out here in Tallahassee at the flea market who does that crap, but with musical instruments. Another one of those storage-turned flea-market types with all his stuff crammed into a storage room and pulled out every weekend. I was interested in a bass guitar and asked him about it, he pulled out a catalog. He barely got it opened before I walked off.

 

Best experience was at a swap shop in Lauderdale. Lady had an Odyssey II with about a dozen cartridges. She asked for $5 and before I could accept she says, "but I'll take $2." Sold, again!

[carlsson]

In any case, don't let the possible availability of random games on flea markets in your area decide where to take your collection next. If you go with a C64 and later on find a whole bag of ST games for $5, you probably could use it for swaps or get an ST as well if you have the room, time, money and desire to do so.

[+OLD CS1]

At this point in the game, I know of a good number of people whose "retro" computing adventure began after stumbling over a complete system, wherever they got it: garage sale, estate sale, flea market, thrift shop, Goodwill, etc. I am about ready to piece together a full Commodore 64 system for a loving home, but I need to get all the bits together and tested.

[mehguy]

Well actually, I stumbled upon a commodore 64 with its disk drive at a goodwill for 50 dollars a while back. But i dont think it came with its cables, should I have bought it?

[RodLightning]

Well actually, I stumbled upon a commodore 64 with its disk drive at a goodwill for 50 dollars a while back. But i dont think it came with its cables, should I have bought it?

 

That's a tough call as-is untested. If both were clean with all keys present on the 64, it may have been worth the gamble. I probably would have pulled the trigger just for parts. I only have one C64 with 1541 floppy drive and no spare bits and pieces to use if anything breaks. That excuse usually works to help me convince myself to buy thrift store hardware if there is any debate! "it's worth that much in parts.."

[carlsson]

For reference, the cables you can expect to find in a such combo would be a power supply for the C64, a 6-pin DIN serial cable to connect the computer to the 1541 and possibly a standard power cable to connect the 1541 to the wall outlet, as the drive has a built-in power supply. Perhaps you could wish for a RF cable too, but anything beyond that would be extras. Composite video cables are easy to obtain or make, but never were standard, and joysticks obviously were extra.

 

I agree that $50 untested might be a gamble as unfortunately neither C64 nor 1541 are fool-proof to always work. Perhaps next time the goodwill store will let you plug things in and somehow test them. A bit off-topic, but a while ago I found a nice looking tape deck which was half price at the goodwill store. I was really tempted to buy it until I plugged it in and found out all it did was to make noises, the tape deck wouldn't move at all. It broke the deal for me, and in that case I'm happy I didn't take my chances just because they had a clearance sale. Broken stuff I have enough of at home to buy even more from goodwill.

[jhd]

Is there any reasonable way to test an old computer (or video game console) without fully setting it up and connecting it to a TV/monitor? Some things have LEDs so you can at least determine if the power supply works, but there is not much else one can do. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic here; I genuinely do not know.)

 

I work under the assumption that all electronics that I see at a thrift shop are non-functional e.g. I once passed on a cheap laptop that had no power brick, and I have seen multiple N64 consoles missing the memory expansion and/or jumper block.

[RodLightning]

Is there any reasonable way to test an old computer (or video game console) without fully setting it up and connecting it to a TV/monitor? Some things have LEDs so you can at least determine if the power supply works, but there is not much else one can do. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic here; I genuinely do not know.)

 

I work under the assumption that all electronics that I see at a thrift shop are non-functional e.g. I once passed on a cheap laptop that had no power brick, and I have seen multiple N64 consoles missing the memory expansion and/or jumper block.

 

It depends on what you are willing to try inside the store and what items are available in the various bins. I have spent time in the past digging through loose wires for the correct power or a/v cable to test different gadgets.

Some stores don't like people messing with their televisions but I have tested plug-and-play tv games that way, even stealing AA batteries from remote controls. Two stores in my local area have power strips next to the electronics and encourage customers to test things. Those are my favorite locations obviously!

 

A while back, I found an Atari 800XL and 1050 floppy drive priced at $5usd each...I grabbed both as-is...a no brainer in my opinion. Both worked, the 1050 needed a little tlc to get going. Oddly enough, I have had fairly good luck with as-is electronics over the years. I have been burned more than once though.

[jhd]

The shops in your area are significantly better than those in mine!

 

Almost all the consoles (and computers) that I see are sold "bare" with no cables, controllers, or power supply anywhere to be found. If a console does include any "accessories", it is sealed into a plastic bag (as are all of the PNP games). Either way, testing the hardware is just not a realistic option.

 

To add insult to injury, electronics are all "final sale only"; returns are not accepted, even if it does not work.

 

The electric fans and curling irons and small appliances are testable as most stores do include a power strip/testing area.

[+OLD CS1]

I carry around my Sega Nomad and Atari Lynx when I visit shops intending to buy cartridges. I have toted around cabling and power supplies for things like consoles and computers, too.

[Serguei2]

There are more shops at this time selling more c64 than Atari ST.

 

Commodore 64 wins.

[Thorsten Günther]

There really is no comparison between those machines:

 

- the C=64 is a slow 8-bit computer with a chipset (VIC-II and SID) intended for 2D arcade style gaming with very good (for the time) sound

- the Atari ST is a cheaply built, very fast (for it's time and cost) general purpose computer with no stronger emphasize on gaming than on word processing or MIDI controlling

 

The main disadvantage of the ST if you are on the wrong side of the pond it that many games have a default (some even fixed) 50Hz screen refresh rate because the vast majority of them was written in Europe (mainly in the UK, France, Germany and Spain) and the best quality video output for gaming (the only available one on pre-FM models) is RGB, so west of the pond one will need e.g. a NEC 1970VX (that despite its official specifications will display the ST's low resolutions) and an adapter cable while east of it a SCART cable is easily available and good CRTs are a dime a dozen (some cheap modern TVs will have issues with the ST's video signal, though).

 

Depending on what style of games one prefers, either machine will be "better". The ST has it's strenghts in classic text adventures (The Pawn e.g.), early 3D/pseudo 3D games (Starglider, Carrier Command, Vroom), RPGs (Dungeon Master), strategy (Populous) and puzzle games (Oxyd), while it's 2D titles are a mixed bag (there's a ton of lackluster titles and only few good ones, often by the Bitmap Brothers, Gremlin Graphics or Thalion). For 2D titles, the Amiga is clearly the better choice.

 

The C=64 will struggle with even primitive 3D (e.g. Elite C=64 vs. the ST version), but has a ton of excellent arcade style 2D games (Mayhem in Monsterland, Katakis, Pitstop II, Great Giana Sisters, etc.).

[emkay]

The C64 has the big advantage that it had been developed to attract people with colourful graphics and music. Even if the Computer "C64" wasn't a useful machine , the graphics and sound automatically found their fanbase. The fanbase also got so far that they played rather slow "3D" Games (Rather Slow means 1 frame in 4 seconds), just to listen to SID Music ...

In that case the C64 was the 1st "Multimedia PC" ....

Atari struggled extremely with the A800 and did a bad job with the ST line... they simply didn't see the Tree in the Forest...

 

The ST had a powerful CPU, but graphics wasn't that great and music was even horrible ...

 

You have to clearly distinguish , the ST was the better Computer , but it missed the "Human Interfacing" , while with the C64 the "Human Interfacing" was on the 1st place.

[high voltage]

ST, used by musicians all over the world, still nowadays. I mean the ST played live with Madonna, cool or what!

Even UK musicians worked for Atari just to work with the ST.

Edited May 5, 2015 by high voltage

[Bill Loguidice]

ST, used by musicians all over the world, still nowadays. I mean the ST played live with Madonna, cool or what!

Even UK musicians worked for Atari just to work with the ST.

 

While I agree that at one time ST's were used by musicians throughout the world, much like at one time Amiga's were used by video producers throughout the world, "nowadays" I seriously doubt very many people are using anything other than a modern Mac or PC for those functions.

[emkay]

While I agree that at one time ST's were used by musicians throughout the world, much like at one time Amiga's were used by video producers throughout the world, "nowadays" I seriously doubt very many people are using anything other than a modern Mac or PC for those functions.

Well.. you compare ST with AMIGA now.

Even the Amiga had it's flaws depending on the "Human interfacing", it was just the sheer power of the Amiga that overhauled the C64 in all cases.

Still, comparing the ST with an Amiga is like comparing one computer with "several".

But, they really did the same mistakes with the Amiga as they did with the Atari 800 line: They didn't "optimize" the parts that referred to the term of "User interfacing".

Just a clean Stereo sound and a flicker free high colour mode hadn't been there at the correct time, so the Amiga lost the competition against the PC.

 

At the end it is more equal to compare the ST and the C64 than to compare the ST with an Amiga

Edited May 5, 2015 by emkay

[carlsson]

The question is if Madonna will part with her Atari ST, assuming she still got it.

[+OLD CS1]

Why not? ISTR Dick van Dyke sold his Amiga stuff.

[Retro-Z]

Interesting discussion. Personally, I have found the 8-Bit Commodore hardware to be pretty flaky. I have had about 10-12 C64s and VIC-20s cross my patch, and I have only had two C64s that actually functioned when I acquired them (I was able to get another 2 going after some repair) and none of the VIC-20s have ever been picked up in working condition. Once they get fixed and maintained, however, the C64s seem to be fairly sturdy and reliable. The 1541 disk drives are another story... those things are horrible! I have a box full of non-functional 1541 drives. However, the two Atari ST computers I picked up a few years back (a 520ST and a Mega STe) both worked great. The hard drive in the Mega was starting to fail when I sold it, but I figure a 25 year service life from a vintage hard drive is fairly respectable.

 

The ST computers are very interesting and fun to mess with, but as has been stated, it is a completely different experience from what you'd find using a C64. A comparison between the two really doesn't accomplish much. You'll most likely find a lot more software and accessories "in the wild" for a C64, but I have found a lot of C64 owner kinda neglected their systems, whereas the Atari ST owners took better care of their equipment. In the end, I'd suggest you just get both whenever the opportunity presents itself. I found nice C64 and ST systems by watching Craigslist, even out here in the middle-of-nowhere Kansas.

 

If you want reliablity, the old Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 1 models have all been incredibly robust. Those things always seem to work!

Edited May 12, 2015 by Retro-Z

[+OLD CS1]

Wow. I think out of the dozens of C64s and VIC-20s which I onto which I have laid my hands, maybe a couple of each did not work, and generally they were mistreated. I know one thing for sure: I sparked a few machines in my time in arid climates. In Florida, not so much but during the winter I take extra special care for static.

[Retro-Z]

Wow. I think out of the dozens of C64s and VIC-20s which I onto which I have laid my hands, maybe a couple of each did not work, and generally they were mistreated. I know one thing for sure: I sparked a few machines in my time in arid climates. In Florida, not so much but during the winter I take extra special care for static.

 

It's great to hear that someone has had good luck with vintage Commodore 8-bits. I sure haven't!!! Whenever I buy a Commodore 64 or VIC-20 I simply assume it won't be functional. I have had MUCH better luck with the products from other companies, such as Atari, Tandy, IBM, and Texas Instruments. I have NEVER had a non-functional computer from either of these companies.

 

Then again, like I stated above, most of the Commodore stuff obviously wasn't as well cared for compared to the computers from other brands. I'm sure this has a lot to do with it being seen as a "cheap" computer in its heyday, along with the type of users it was aimed at (a first computer for kids or people likely using it primarily as a game console).

 

I know that if I had my choice between an Atari product or the equivalent Commodore product, I"d likely skip the Commodore. The Commodore computers are awesome when they work, but I just don't have much faith in them.

 

As with anything, everyone's experiences vary.