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The real fight Atari versus Commodore


JKK

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@Mazzspeed well I hoped that you will feel some "irony" in this title and in all that story. I come to this from some distance not treating this war very serious. You could discover this watching carefully the film and solving two small tasks hidden in that. :P However I think it might be interesting to compare both computers looking on them from some distance.

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@emkay A bit pity that we didn't start this discussion earlier as I could put something from in into my video. You seems to be really deeply involved in sound issues of both chips! Thanks for sharing your knowledge here! For me this discussion however confirm one sentence from my film that it's really difficult to compare both sound chips as they are much different.

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So silly. The Ataris were always ahead of, technically superior, and built much higher quality than the cheaper commodores.  Atari lost the race due to being over priced and market confusion with them being cross marketed as game machines - which obviously they were arguably better at also.  If the Tramiels never existed to undercut the market with far cheaper alternatives, Atari would have Undoubtedly dominated and Apple might have never happened. Commodore did nothing but rape Atari potential market share and starved them. Atari was a better computer but commodore was a better business. Atari was staffed by people who were passionate about technology, creativity, and computers.  Commodore was about Sales and profit, period. Huge difference. Why one decimated the other. Also why Atari failed under the Tramiels. No quality and slow innovation that couldn’t dig them out of their enormous financial hole due to The mis management a decade earlier. Atari is a classic business study on how to kill a beautiful product with poor business decisions and mgmt. 

Edited by YSG2020
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10 minutes ago, YSG2020 said:

So silly. The Ataris were always ahead of, technically superior, and built much higher quality than the cheaper commodores.  Atari lost the race due to being over priced and market confusion with them being cross marketed as game machines - which obviously they were arguably better at also.  If the Tramiels never existed to undercut the market with far cheaper alternatives, Atari would have Undoubtedly dominated and Apple might have never happened. Commodore did nothing but rape Atari potential market share and starved them. Atari was a better computer but commodore was a better business. Atari was staffed but people who were passionate about technology, creativity, and computers.  Commodore was about Sales and profit, period. Huge difference. Why one decimated the other. Also why Atari failed under the Tramiels. No quality and slow innovation. 

 

Sorry, but Atari would have died quickly , if the Tramiels didn't get in. 

Warner did everything wrong back then. 

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24 minutes ago, emkay said:

 

Sorry, but Atari would have died quickly , if the Tramiels didn't get in. 

Warner did everything wrong back then. 

I agree. This is true. Warner blew it big time. Hobbling the XL and turning it into the Lacklustre XE was a mistake. They didn’t have a choice though as Atari was hemoraging cash. I liked the ST’s and GEM was a clever Color one up on Apple, but losing the Amiga rights were another classic Atari Business blunder.  Atari died when their brilliant creative engineers and marketers all went to Apple.  I don’t think many people realize it, but Apple is in essence Atari, and would not have existed without Atari. Their DNA is the same. Atari isn’t dead, it’s alive and well, and now run by Tim Cook and has one of the largest market caps of any business on the planet. ;)

Edited by YSG2020
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@YSG2020, I believe it's much complicated. Please note that Tramiel entered Atari when they had significant financial problems. Why did they have them? Probably without these problems Tramiel wouldn't be able to buy Atari. Sometimes you have better product from technical side but something else is missing and you don't make success. Moreover the question is if Atari was better in all areas. For example in case of sounds chips area, probably it's the most challenging to compare these two products. I'm sure we could have a lot discussion with a lot of coffee/beer (depending on preferences) on that subject.

 

@emkay Not sure how much can I say about giving hints. I can say that one message is hidden as encrypted and the second is hidden as encoded (sure every message is somehow encoded even my text written here in this comment however this one is encoded in a bit special way). It would be good to discover these two messages as it gives some light about my attitude to this "war".

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4 hours ago, YSG2020 said:

So silly. The Ataris were always ahead of, technically superior, and built much higher quality than the cheaper commodores.  Atari lost the race due to being over priced and market confusion with them being cross marketed as game machines - which obviously they were arguably better at also.  If the Tramiels never existed to undercut the market with far cheaper alternatives, Atari would have Undoubtedly dominated and Apple might have never happened. Commodore did nothing but rape Atari potential market share and starved them. Atari was a better computer but commodore was a better business. Atari was staffed by people who were passionate about technology, creativity, and computers.  Commodore was about Sales and profit, period. Huge difference. Why one decimated the other. Also why Atari failed under the Tramiels. No quality and slow innovation that couldn’t dig them out of their enormous financial hole due to The mis management a decade earlier. Atari is a classic business study on how to kill a beautiful product with poor business decisions and mgmt. 

Yeah...No. Furthermore, I have to say, I don't see Atari DNA in any Apple product. They're like chalk and cheese.

 

That's fanboism (not surprising, this is an Atari 8 bit forum), the reality is far more complex and not really worth discussing in a forum devoted to Atari 8 bit computers. To quote Ferris Beuller:

 

Quote

It's not that i support facsism or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Not bad, but then again he was the walrus.

?

Edited by Mazzspeed
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17 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

Yeah...No. Furthermore, I have to say, I don't see Atari DNA in any Apple product. They're like chalk and cheese.

 

That's fanboism (not surprising, this is an Atari 8 bit forum), the reality is far more complex and not really worth discussing in a forum devoted to Atari 8 bit computers. To quote Ferris Beuller:

 

?

Go listen to the Atari interviews.  I’ve listened to almost all of them.  Atari 100% spawned Apple and there is a Quantitative straight lineage to many of Apple’s quality products and creative culture direct from Atari. Not fanboism. It’s what happened. 

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12 minutes ago, YSG2020 said:

Go listen to the Atari interviews.  I’ve listened to almost all of them.  Atari 100% spawned Apple and there is a Quantitative straight lineage to many of Apple’s quality products and creative culture direct from Atari. Not fanboism. It’s what happened. 

I'm not interested in arguing this point. I see no shared DNA between any Atari product and any Apple product and listening to interviews isn't going to change that. Even from a purely architectural perspective the A8 line share very little with the Apple II line with the exception of the processor.

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1 minute ago, Mazzspeed said:

I'm not interested in arguing this point. I see no shared DNA between any Atari product and any Apple product and listening to interviews isn't going to change that. Even from a purely architectural perspective the A8 line share very little with the Apple II line with the exception of the processor.

Well, if you did, you would understand  that many of the Influential leading engineers , people, and ideas from Atari went on to Apple and were involved in pivotal R&D projects there that progressively have lead directly over the years to products being developed today.  The culture hasn’t changed either.  The winning DNA is still there and hasn’t changed much. Atari didn’t disappear. It migrated. 

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1 minute ago, YSG2020 said:

Well, if you did, you would understand  that many of the Influential leading engineers , people, and ideas from Atari went on to Apple and were involved in pivotal R&D projects there that progressively have lead directly over the years to products being developed today.  The culture hasn’t changed either.  The winning DNA is still there and hasn’t changed much. Atari didn’t disappear. It migrated. 

I get sick and tired of hearing how engineers are 'Atari'. Engineers are engineers, they specialize in a certain field and follow that field.

 

Whether they were poached from Atari directly via Steve Jobs or whether they left to work for Apple as they felt Atari was a sinking ship, the fact remains that they applied next to no Atari DNA in the Apple II line. Steve Jobs offered Atari management a share in Apple, Atari management turned him down.

 

DNA between Atari and Amiga I can see. There is no Atari in any Apple product and engineers are not 'Atari'.

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17 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

I get sick and tired of hearing how engineers are 'Atari'. Engineers are engineers, they specialize in a certain field and follow that field.

 

Whether they were poached from Atari directly via Steve Jobs or whether they left to work for Apple as they felt Atari was a sinking ship, the fact remains that they applied next to no Atari DNA in the Apple II line. Steve Jobs offered Atari management a share in Apple, Atari management turned him down.

 

DNA between Atari and Amiga I can see. There is no Atari in any Apple product and engineers are not 'Atari'.

Products and company’s are Ultimately nothing more than their people and culture.  Engineers are people. They make the products. They are collectively the culture. 
 

lol of course there is DNA between Amiga and Atari. The Amiga was invented by and belonged to Atari r&d, until Atari lost the rights/contract in a legal/HR issue when Atari was bought. 

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9 minutes ago, YSG2020 said:

Products and company’s are Ultimately nothing more than their people and culture.  Engineers are people. They make the products. They are collectively the culture. 
 

lol of course there is DNA between Amiga and Atari. The Amiga was invented by and belonged to Atari, until Atari lost the rights/contract in a legal/HR issue when Atari was bought. 

Atari never owned Amiga Corp, there was an unfinalized deal that amounted to nothing and Atari provided some funding.

 

Atari was bleeding engineers well before Hi Toro was even considered, and engineers are not Atari. Atari tried to sue Commodore based on breach of contract and lost, therefore Atari never owned Amiga Co. The Amiga was not invented by Atari.

 

This is just one of many examples of poor management regarding Atari. Having said that, not long after Commodore acquired Amiga Co, Commodore began making some stupid decisions of their own.

Edited by Mazzspeed
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Interesting video.

I admit I skipped through some parts of it, it felt a little to slow my taste, and I have a feeling some of the information isn't exactly accurate...
But it was a pretty nice one for sure, so thanks for sharing!

In my opinion there is no clear winner, both are really good machines and they both have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Instead of comparing what cannot be done on one or the other, just enjoy what can be done really well on either of each, this is what I like the most personally :P 
Some features were technically superior on the C64, and some were also on the A8... This is the charm they have, limitations breeds creativity after all :) 

(if anyone asks, I like the Atari the most, but don't tell the Commodore fans... I have several C64s in my closet held as hostage for the time I've been playing with my Atari :D )

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I’d like to know what features were considered superior on a C64 other than its low price and Resulting huge software Library?  I’ve owned and programmed on both 8bit platforms and the Atari beats it in pretty much every quantitative and qualitative way. I don’t dislike the Commodores. They were charming Affordable underdogs that won the day with their fantastic array of 3rd party development. From an innovation, quality, and technology perspective though, I don’t see how there’s much of an argument though for the commodore in a  Head to head comparison. 

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6 minutes ago, YSG2020 said:

I’d like to know what features were considered superior on a C64 other than its low price and Resulting huge software Library?  I’ve owned and programmed on both 8bit platforms and the Atari beats it in pretty much every quantitative and qualitative way. I don’t dislike the Commodores. They were charming Affordable underdogs that won the day with their fantastic array of 3rd party development. From an innovation, quality, and technology perspective though, I don’t see how there’s much of an argument though for the commodore in a  Head to head comparison. 

 

The possibility of having those 8 flexible sprites is the advantage for the C64 , to have games like Armalyte at 50fps.

This allows also to handle games quickly, and more efficient to earn money with the produced software.

No chance there for the Atari.

The C64 was generally build upon that the coder has direct programmable  hardware logics available. 

The Atari was build to have those "ego view" 3D like games available. 

 

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5 hours ago, YSG2020 said:

From an innovation, quality, and technology perspective though, I don’t see how there’s much of an argument though for the commodore in a  Head to head comparison. 

When I first jumped back into the 8-bit world a few years ago, I thought it'd be naturally possible to discuss the old tech without the old tribal allegiances and fanboyism. After all, a few decades have passed and we're all old farts now, so should be able to talk about it all in an unbiased and non-emotional manner.

 

I was wrong :)

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@VinsCool Thank you for this comment. I would be highly interested which information is not accurate. Sure there are many simplifications in order to keep the video length reasonable (especially that I have also limited time I can spend on preparing videos). However can you see any serious errors?

 

To all guys, thanks a lot for all these comments. As I can see there is still some kind of "war" between Atari and Commodore even I expected that from some time perspective emotions would be not so strong. I'm also happy that my small video started this interesting thread. :)

 

Btw, do you think if would be worth to continue this subject on YouTube, either giving some more technical details, either ex. trying to compare better today's processors with 8-bit ones?

 

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@JKK Sadly there still is a 'war' with some on both sides, a totally un-needed one at that..

 

The only common factor is the family that ran both and they did a poor job in most cases...The machines were good but the potential was lost for the Atari.

 

I kind of hoped the old playground mentality of 'mines better than yours' would fizzle out over the years but for some it's still a issue they can't or won't deal with. Thankfully there's lots of us who just love the old machines no matter who makes them or what is on them for what they are, entertaining bits of history and a wonderful part of our early life. For me they were my hobby and then job, great times, I don't want to sour it now with silly squabbles about who was the better machine. There was no better machine, it's how good the software was and was it written for your machine, the clever / slightly better off person didn't limit their choice, they went where the goodies were be it C64, Atari, Amstrad, Spectrum etc etc

 

Why play one set of software when you can play many...It's like always choosing the same breakfast cereal when there's so many choices that are so good...

 

You can always come back to the old one you liked at any time...

Edited by Mclaneinc
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