The real fight Atari versus Commodore

[Mclaneinc]

Growing a popular channel is going to take a long time and it can be destroyed very quickly by small issues. Top of the list, KNOW YOUR STUFF, people will switch off if you start telling unverified 'stories', if you don't know the facts then don't bother. Personality certainly helps, don't play games with the watchers by being cocky, no one likes a smart arse. Variation is key, as with the 8 Bit Guy, he knows a chunk of machines and can code and do electronics. Lastly, never bring politics or religion in to the equation and be mindful of not upsetting people with personal viewpoints that may seem extreme or just not acceptable in today's world.

 

Last but not least, plan it out WELL, some folks start out unscripted or place themselves to much as the front of the video, it must always be about the item and not about you.

 

I wish you well but don't expect instant success and donations here there and everywhere, one of our devs, Flashjazzcat has a great channel, its funny, technical but beginner friendly and varied. He's been doing it a while and only recently did he get a payment from youtube, 78.00 UK, giving how much work he has put in it seems a pittance but its also about the helping side..

 

[zzip]

The Commodore 800XL is so much better than the Atari 64.   Anyone who says otherwise is blind! ?

[Tuxon86]

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

The Commodore 800XL is so much better than the Atari 64.   Anyone who says otherwise is blind! ?

Both sucked compared to the CoCo/4A

[carlsson]

To be honest, a computer with a 6809, a TMS9928/29 and an AY-3-891x would not have been an entirely bad thing. Like a MSX but with the almost 16-bit 6809.

[Tuxon86]

57 minutes ago, carlsson said:

To be honest, a computer with a 6809, a TMS9928/29 and an AY-3-891x would not have been an entirely bad thing. Like a MSX but with the almost 16-bit 6809.

Hey, at least it would’ve had a better colour palette... ?

[carlsson]

Hm. The CoCo 1 was released in September 1980, compared to the original TI-99/4A which was announced in June 1979 and released later the same year. I suppose Texas Instruments at that point had no interest to second source chips to Tandy. However from all the sources I can find, the TI chipset (9918 VDP and 9919 PSG = SN76489) went from proprietary to off-the-shelf, available to any manufacturer, sometime in the late spring, early summer 1981.

 

I wonder if Tandy ever considered the CoCo inferior not only to the Atari 8-bit, but also to the new C64 in the summer of 1982 and if that would have prompted them to throw away the "Green Thumb" Motorola custom chips in favor for something hotter for the CoCo 2 to be released in 1983, even if it meant no backwards compatibility. By the time of the war in the summer of 1983, in any case it was too late for any form of consolidation/co-operation between Texas Instruments and Tandy with their association to Radio Shack stores.

[emkay]

Back in the days, I had a C128 for 14 days. 

In that time "one computer was time wasting enough"  , and the C128 didn't impress anyways. It was just the deep SID sound that was somehow impressive, that's why it took me 14 days to give it away . 

The Atari was simply better for the learning purpose , and ofcourse had some real catchy games.

If you have a "real life" and the computer is only a part of spare time "use" , it wasn't possible to think about wasting "double the time". 

The real fun was to write math routines in Basic, to visualize algebraic functions, helping to understand physical logics. 

 

 

   

[Tuxon86]

2 minutes ago, emkay said:

Back in the days, I had a C128 for 14 days. 

In that time "one computer was time wasting enough"  , and the C128 didn't impress anyways. It was just the deep SID sound that was somehow impressive, that's why it took me 14 days to give it away . 

The Atari was simply better for the learning purpose , and ofcourse had some real catchy games.

If you have a "real life" and the computer is only a part of spare time "use" , it wasn't possible to think about wasting "double the time". 

The real fun was to write math routines in Basic, to visualize algebraic functions, helping to understand physical logics. 

 

 

   

I was “doubling the time” as I had both a c64 and a 130xe. I gamed on the c64 and coded on the 130xe. This lasted until I got an XT clone for college. Both the 8bit paid for the XT.

[JKK]

@MclaneincI know it will not be an easy piece of cake...

Edited March 23, 2021 by JKK

[+CharlieChaplin]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

The Commodore 800XL is so much better than the Atari 64.   Anyone who says otherwise is blind! ?

 

It is the opposite in the 16Bit world: The Atari Amiga is so much better than the Commodore ST... 

 

 

[+gnusto]

On 3/22/2021 at 8:47 AM, carlsson said:

While 1983-84 on short term was the most profitable in Commodore's history, in the long run they probably took as much hit from it as their competitors, of which they got rid of a bunch.

 

They were doing fine from a cost control perspective, and they had a huge leg up on their competitors which meant ultimately they could win that race, because they owned MOS and nobody else did. But Tramiel's fits of genius were balanced by equally extreme stupidity; having been an early pioneer in vertical integration by buying MOS, he promptly strangled their R&D funding. They were a parts manufacturer to him; nothing more, much of the engineering staff that built the 6500 series left or quit eventually due to his policies, and he got what he wanted: a parts manufacturer.

 

Meanwhile the legs of the 6500 were running out, and even in the early few years of the 80s it was stumbling. Efficiencies in well-known fabrication process took it a couple of years past that, then it was over. Commodore ran back to Motorola for the Amiga (ironic considering that MOS was a team hired from inside Motorola).

[carlsson]

Yes, I know that MOS/CSG dated quickly so what was impressive and an advantage in 1983 was nearly useless in 1992, shortly before the end.

 

By the way, for those interested in the Commodore share price:

 

Date       Price/Bid
1982-01-29     48,38 <- Announcing the C64
1982-02-26     45,00
1982-03-31     42,50
1982-04-30     51,38
1982-05-28     32,13
1982-06-30     39,00
1982-07-30     37,75 <- C64 sales started (roughly)
1982-08-31     36,00
1982-09-30     35,88
1982-10-29     50,25
1982-11-30     73,38
1982-12-31     66,25
1983-01-31     76,75
1983-02-28     81,63
1983-03-31     74,38
1983-04-29     87,75
1983-05-31     91,88 <- Record high
1983-06-30     54,25 <- Price war initiated
1983-07-29     45,50
1983-08-31     43,13
1983-09-30     42,50
1983-10-31     34,50
1983-11-30     37,13
1983-12-30     41,50
1984-01-31     36,00 <- Tramiel leaving
1984-02-29     33,75
1984-03-30     37,63
1984-04-30     36,88
1984-05-31     25,00
1984-06-29     27,13
1984-07-31     22,50
1984-08-31     29,38
1984-09-28     28,88
1984-10-31     27,13
1984-11-30     22,50
1984-12-31     16,38

From then and later it never closed a month beyond $20 again. Part of that could of course be due to splits etc. There was a small spike at $19.63 in April 1989.

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by carlsson

[Sugarland]

I've found that by-and-large, C64 users are misinformed about the Atari 8bits, or just ignorant about them.  They still repeat the same inaccurate gossip they hear from other C64 users. They don't know the A8 platform.

[Mazzspeed]

10 minutes ago, Sugarland said:

I've found that by-and-large, C64 users are misinformed about the Atari 8bits, or just ignorant about them.  They still repeat the same inaccurate gossip they hear from other C64 users. They don't know the A8 platform.

That's ironic. I find the same regarding A8 owners.

[zzip]

5 hours ago, Sugarland said:

I've found that by-and-large, C64 users are misinformed about the Atari 8bits, or just ignorant about them.  They still repeat the same inaccurate gossip they hear from other C64 users. They don't know the A8 platform.

When somethings as popular as the C64,  then a lot of people will gravitate towards it because it's popular, has the most games etc.   These users aren't buying it because of specs and likely couldn't even tell you what the specs are or what the other guys specs are.

 

This isn't a knock on C64 or its users, this will happen with any popular system

[Mclaneinc]

5 hours ago, Sugarland said:

I've found that by-and-large, C64 users are misinformed about the Atari 8bits, or just ignorant about them.  They still repeat the same inaccurate gossip they hear from other C64 users. They don't know the A8 platform.

I think you will find that common to all computers and consoles, any machine that has fan boys and you will get this..

 

Thankfully there's enough normal users to suppress it a bit..

[nadir]

22 hours ago, carlsson said:

I wonder if Tandy ever considered the CoCo inferior not only to the Atari 8-bit, but also to the new C64 in the summer of 1982 and if that would have prompted them to throw away the "Green Thumb" Motorola custom chips in favor for something hotter for the CoCo 2 to be released in 1983, even if it meant no backwards compatibility. By the time of the war in the summer of 1983, in any case it was too late for any form of consolidation/co-operation between Texas Instruments and Tandy with their association to Radio Shack stores.

I had a CoCo2 for awhile (got it for free).  Lots of carts and disks with it.  All totally unimpressive.  Really, given the specs and everything I knew about it, it was one big disappointment overall when I used it.  Well, OS-9 and the C compiler were *fine*, but not reason enough to keep it so I gave it away eventually.  It actually discouraged me for years from trying other retro platforms.  Now I've got an Atari 600XL and a Commodore 128 and they're both leaps and bounds better.  If I have to pick the one I like best, it's the Atari, but it's because of the community.  The old Ataris have a great community around them whereas the Commodore scene seems to be dying out.

[Mazzspeed]

3 hours ago, nadir said:

I had a CoCo2 for awhile (got it for free).  Lots of carts and disks with it.  All totally unimpressive.  Really, given the specs and everything I knew about it, it was one big disappointment overall when I used it.  Well, OS-9 and the C compiler were *fine*, but not reason enough to keep it so I gave it away eventually.  It actually discouraged me for years from trying other retro platforms.  Now I've got an Atari 600XL and a Commodore 128 and they're both leaps and bounds better.  If I have to pick the one I like best, it's the Atari, but it's because of the community.  The old Ataris have a great community around them whereas the Commodore scene seems to be dying out.

The CoCo2 was an average machine, even at the time - Although I was envious of my mate who bought a dual 5" FDD setup out of some old PDP Minicomputer from the local metal recyclers and just plugged it onto his Coco, while I shelled over hundreds for a single drive that was slower in factory configuration.

 

However, the CoCo2 wasn't the end of the line and the CoCo3 was a much better device with a number of improvements over the CoCo2 including native 80 column mode. Don't totally write off the CoCo line at the CoCo2...

 

The Commodore scene is far from dying out, it's still very active with new hardware/software being released all the time. Gideon's (the maker of the Ultimate 64 and the 1541UII+) FB page is quite busy, with Gideon constantly releasing improvements for his devices via firmware updates, and Particles BBS is flat chat with Commodore users (actually, users of all sorts, as most 8bit platforms have their own sub forum). Don't connect to Particles for one day and you come back to nearly 20 messages. There's also development in the works of a FPGA VIC-II with a huge colour palette and a well implemented hardware 80 column mode (possibly even more graphics modes).

 

Lemon64 is a little slower, but they did have a big hacking recently and may have lost a number of users. Plus, the forum isn't very well laid out - There's not even a sub forum dedicated to hardware! There's also some redirect issue going on at Lemon64, sometimes when I Google search Commodore problems links to Lemon64 don't open unless I forcibly open them in a new tab and accept the redirect.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[_The Doctor__]

I like the fact that 64 guys are done with it and are coming to Atari, some of them are willing to code using the same opcodes and tricks that worked on the 64 in the Atari world. It will allow for some nice new stuff to happen... but you can bet your bottom dollar that they get sick of people screaming heretic! You used 'illegal' opcode... The only reason not to do so is if you are pulling the 6502 and using a different CPU, which you can detect and change to opcodes for anyway, since the newer processor usually have something to do the function of the problem code or work faster anyway.

Some of them are now doing work on both 64 and Atari... and that's awesome stuff.

Edited March 24, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[Mazzspeed]

3 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I like the fact that 64 guys are done with it and are coming to Atari, some of them are willing to code using the same opcodes and tricks that worked on the 64 in the Atari world. It will allow for some nice new stuff to happen... but you can bet your bottom dollar that they get sick of people screaming heretic! You used 'illegal' opcode... The only reason not to do so is if you are pulling the 6502 and using a different CPU, which you can detect and change to opcodes for anyway, since the newer processor usually have something to do the function of the problem code or work faster anyway.

Some of them are now doing work on both 64 and Atari... and that's awesome stuff.

And this is what you want, you want people adopting 8bit cross platform. Due to the retro boom, popularity of the various platforms is rising and people want software as well as hardware - Therefore, encouraging the use of many 8bit platforms can only be a positive to the retro community as a whole.

 

As for the illegal opcode saga, the whole situation is a little silly. Hopefully people can grow up somewhat.

[nadir]

2 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

The Commodore scene is far from dying out, it's still very active with new hardware/software being released all the time.

 

Good to hear.  When I search for Commodore stuff it seems like there's nothing out there whereas Atari lots of stuff comes up.  Would like to do more with my new to me Commodore!

[Mrarkus]

4 minutes ago, nadir said:

 

Good to hear.  When I search for Commodore stuff it seems like there's nothing out there whereas Atari lots of stuff comes up.  Would like to do more with my new to me Commodore!

 

Commodore scene is pretty active, with some nice hardware like Ultimate II+ and Ultimate 64, Turbo Chameleon, etc., however I do think that a lot of 64 guys simply got bored with it. A8 is a new challenge and I hope more get into cross-platform or simply jump ship. I certainly did and love it. Especially since SID is now a thing with PokeyMax

[Mazzspeed]

53 minutes ago, Mrarkus said:

 

Commodore scene is pretty active, with some nice hardware like Ultimate II+ and Ultimate 64, Turbo Chameleon, etc., however I do think that a lot of 64 guys simply got bored with it. A8 is a new challenge and I hope more get into cross-platform or simply jump ship. I certainly did and love it. Especially since SID is now a thing with PokeyMax

I think this is exactly right.

 

I know that personally I've pretty much got both my C64 and Amiga systems to a point I'm happy, it's time for a new challenge! Hence my new 600XL that I'm currently working on.

[Mrarkus]

49 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

I think this is exactly right.

 

I know that personally I've pretty much got both my C64 and Amiga systems to a point I'm happy, it's time for a new challenge! Hence my new 600XL that I'm currently working on.

 

Same here, with an Atari ST as well though. I have nice Ultimate 64, Amiga 1200, and 1040ST setups, and I do play with them once in a while (mostly for Ultimate IV Remastered on U64, Black Crypt on Amiga, and Sundog and Dungeon Master on ST), but my Atari 800 is my creative outlet for the little time I have. Since I've been working from home for about a year now, I've been able to squeeze some quality 6502 assembly time like the good old C64 pre-family days

[carlsson]

10 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

the CoCo3 was a much better device with a number of improvements over the CoCo2 including native 80 column mode

Yes, but the CoCo3 also dates to 1986 so released after the 130XE & C128, actually time wise more on par with the ST and Amiga lines. Clearly a design from 1980, based on hardware from 1978 didn't still cut the mustard by then so Tandy had to do something: massive upgrade or retire the 8-bit series. Actually it seems that was a busy year for Tandy, besides the CoCo3 they also released 1000EX, 1000SX (both 8088 based) and 1000TX (80286) in 1986. However at price tags of $1000 and upwards, while being affordable for being PC compatibles it was big money compared to the $220 CoCo3 and all its 8-bit competitors at the time.