10 Lamest Game Consoles, Ever

[Garak]

And that just about taps out what I know about the MAX. If you'd like, I could bug the guys over at Lemon64 for more info and/or any clarifications that might exist.

 

Or one of those Lemon64 guys could post here.

 

More about the Ultimax can be found at this page here at "The Secret Weapons of Commodore".

 

Garak

Edited November 20, 2006 by Garak

[jbanes]

Or one of those Lemon64 guys could post here.

I was wondering what that citrusy smell was!

 

Yeah, feel free to add your two cents worth if you've got it.

[Garak]

Or one of those Lemon64 guys could post here.

I was wondering what that citrusy smell was!

 

 

Yeah, feel free to add your two cents worth if you've got it.

 

Well, aside from the link I gave and the information you gave I don't have too much more.

 

Except I don't think the Ultimax was really geared toward being a game machine. From the Secret Weapon site, it states that the manual for the MAX states, "Max Machine: The Friendly Computer" and the Max did have it's own keyboard.

 

Now the later released C64GS was definitely released as a game system. Although I've heard that it was cheaper to buy an actual C64 then to buy the C64GS (which was a C64).

 

And to prevent any confusion the Ultimax and the C64GS were two different things.

 

Garak

Edited November 20, 2006 by Garak

[supercat]

If I understand correctly, the MAX Machine (originally, the VIC-10) was released in January of 1982. It was intended to be sold alongside the C64 (originally, VIC-30) as the low end machine. Keep in mind that Tramiel was obsessed with keeping prices low. He felt it was the best way to outcompete the Apple, Ataris, and TIs.

 

As things happened, the computer price wars began in January of 1983. The price drop on both the C64 and the VIC-20 slowly edged the MAX out of a market. By April, the VIC-20 had plummetted below $100, leaving absolutely no place in the market for the MAX.

 

I would guess that the Max Machine probably had one 2Kx8 RAM and one 1Kx4. The VIC-20, by comparison, had eleven 1Kx4 chips. Indeed, even the Commodore 64 has fewer total chips than the VIC-20. I wonder how the chip prices compared in those days?

 

Perhaps when Commodore introduced the C64 they wanted to keep having a low-end computer but wanted to phase out production of the VIC-20 (which would have cost more to produce than the Max Machine). Whether it was viewed as a computer or game machine could be a question of semantics, but I can't think of any computers that required a cartridge to be able to do anything. To be sure, "Memo Pad" on the A8's wasn't exactly the most useful thing in the world, but I think the A8's could also boot from tape without cartridges, couldn't they?

 

As to the matter of the MAX being a video game machine, there is an interesting story about that. While the PET was somewhat successful, Tramiel felt that the key to success would be to promote the computer as both a useful machine *and* a new way to play games! So they hired William Shatner, and got him to do a commercial where he asked the consumer, "Why buy just a video game?"

 

I know Commodore marketed its machines as being computers rather than video games, but what were they really used for? Playing video games or, to a lesser extent, developing them.

 

* There was a general feeling at the time that game consoles were on their way out, and computers were on their way in. Long thought to be a "fad", video game machines were somewhat expected to disappear altogether.

 

I think what happened is that computers started evolving in directions that really weren't suitable for gaming. A 640x480x16 bitmapped display is far superior to a 256x192 display which is based on sprites and tiled backgrounds if one is trying to do most types of "real work". On the other hand, the latter is apt to be much more suitable for games.

 

Computers are also much less homogenous than they used to be. While there are fewer major variations (basically just Mac and PC) there are orders of magnitude more minor variations. Although there were a few slight variations in the C64, from a programmer's perspective there were probably less than ten all told (including PAL and NTSC) and they were mostly pretty slight. If you wanted to reach 90% of the possible computer market, you'd write a C64 version, an A8 version, and possibly an Apple version (some games were just plain not suitable for that platform). By contrast, PCs can have any of hundreds of video cards, sound cards, controllers, etc. Designing a game which will work well with all of them can be a severe challenge.

 

Game machines help avoid some of that diversity and associated complexity. Any X-box works like any other X-box. Users don't have to guess whether there machine's video card will be fast enough to handle a game successfully. The speed of theirs will likely match the speed of the developer's.