classic battle atari 8bit vs commodore 64

[Marius]

To programmers it matters. If it were up to them alone. But the best system doesn't necessarily get the most or best software, because that is decided by management depending on user base and the most possible sales. So it all depends on which computer the public perceives to be the best due to, most likely, the best marketing, and nothing to do with the strength of the hardware. But a programmer, given the choice, will always want the best hardware (assuming no previous bias because said programmer started out as an end-user with their favorite machine).

 

Nintendo Gameboy is a perfect example of user-base over best tech, due to marketing. It was the least powerful hand-held of all (granted it was the first), but still maintained the most software and most programmed for because programmer's make a living base on sales, but most I am sure would have much preferred programming a Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx at the time.

 

Also, the more a system is programmed for, the more is learned about the hardware and how to take best advantage of it, so often the best hardware doesn't look the best to the end-user because the best ways to take advantage of the hardware have not been discovered yet due to lack of programming experience with the hardware. The Atari 8-bit vs. C64 is the best example of these two situations. In their case it's a close comparison of power with both having strengths in different areas, but most of the Atari's strengths had not even been seen until more recent years, except for the rare exceptions, as more and more in later viable years the Atari was an afterthought that got bare-bones, qucik and dirty ports from the C64, if it got the software at all.

 

Ah I now read your explanation. So that answers already the question in my previous post.

 

Agreed. But your answer is exactly what I mean. When I could travel back in time I would have picked the C64 (I actually wrote that in this post http://atariage.com/forums/topic/110400-classic-battle-atari-8bit-vs-commodore-64/?p=4195846) simply because of the software library available. I now do not want C64, because of the reason I wrote in the post above, AND because the software library of a8 is extremely interesting now.

 

Anyway, I think it is a useless discussion. What does it matter what has a better taste: apples or oranges; enjoy them both. What does it matter what sounds better: a violin or a piano; enjoy them both (which btw. also is true here that it is the musician that in fact declares which instrument is the best... the creativity of the player is really important).

[Irgendwer]

With other tools, like a hammer, I can imagine that a Carpenter wants to use the very best hammer there exist, but the end user (the person that lives in the house that the carpenter built) does not really care what hammer he used.

 

The thing is a little bit more complex: The carpenter may likes to use the best hammer, but it also has to be affordable too.

I also think that the C64 marketing was a lot stronger compared to the A8 (at least here in Germany), but part of the marketing was also the price tag (like it was done with the Atari ST later on).

If you exclude the pricing, nobody (especially developers/engineers) would bought a home computer but much more capable machines.

 

I'm thankful for the C64 in the way, that the competition allowed me to buy an 800XL for an affordable price...

Edited January 12, 2019 by Irgendwer

[Gunstar]

 

Ah I now read your explanation. So that answers already the question in my previous post.

 

Agreed. But your answer is exactly what I mean. When I could travel back in time I would have picked the C64 (I actually wrote that in this post http://atariage.com/forums/topic/110400-classic-battle-atari-8bit-vs-commodore-64/?p=4195846) simply because of the software library available. I now do not want C64, because of the reason I wrote in the post above, AND because the software library of a8 is extremely interesting now.

 

Anyway, I think it is a useless discussion. What does it matter what has a better taste: apples or oranges; enjoy them both. What does it matter what sounds better: a violin or a piano; enjoy them both (which btw. also is true here that it is the musician that in fact declares which instrument is the best... the creativity of the player is really important).

I agree, enjoy them both. As I said, they are close in overall "power" and have their own individual strengths and abilities, in both hardware and software.

 

You say "When I could travel back in time I would have picked the C64" So, maybe I missed it in one of your posts, but what computer did you pick back in time? Did you pick an Atari 8-bit? Or what? Because you also say "AND because the software library of a8 is extremely interesting now."

I was saving up for an Apple IIc myself, back in the day, with it's 128K memory, which is what excited me most, because I was learning to program in high school. But then I read an article on "The New Atari" run by Jack Tramiel, with the 128K 130XE for far less money and more modular so I could expand to a disk drive and other peripherals as I saved the money, instead of waiting to save it all at once. So that's why I chose Atari. I was learning programming on an Apple IIe at school, but the Atari had Microsoft Basic too, and the same CPU.

In hind-sight, I have always been glad I picked the Atari because of all it's advanced custom processors the Apple II didn't have standard (if at all). But I too, drooled over all the cool C64 games and other software back in the day, that the Atari wasn't getting. But, when Atari did get an original game title and not a port from the C64, it was generally better than the C64 version, Like the Lucasfilm games for instance.

But if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I'd still pick an Atari over C64 or Apple II. And not just for software reasons, but also for all the third party upgrades Atari's got memory wise, and the speed of disk drives over the C64, and SpartaDOS, and a host of other reasons including my preference of Atari graphic abilities over C64. I prefer all the extra graphic modes and colors available, and ability to mix graphic modes over more sprites on a C64. So like you, I prefer Atari 8-bit because it is an Atari 8-bit.

Looking at it practically, even though I drooled over all those C64 games that didn't come out for Atari, I could barely afford the the great games that did come out for the Atari, so even if I owned a C64 back then, I wouldn't have gotten to try most of it's software anyway. I wasn't in a position or have the knowledge at the time to obtain pirated software, even if I wanted too, so I had to pick and choose wisely what software I did purchase, and there was more than enough fantastic Atari software to choose from, even it if was far less to choose from than the C64.

It wasn't until the early 90's, when American software releases had dried up completely for the Atari, that I discovered how to obtain pirated English and European Atari software that I couldn't buy anyway, since it was never released in the U.S. Even then, with an NTSC machine, only a small portion of that pirated software ran on my Atari. But I'm still discovering new-to-me software today, mostly from Europe, now that I have a PAL Atari.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Gunstar

[Marius]

 

Did you pick an Atari 8-bit? Or what? Because you also say "AND because the software library of a8 is extremely interesting now."

 

This question made me smile. The reason I became known to Atari 8bit, because of the simple fact that I did win one. My mother and I designed our own christmascards and the prize we could win was an Atari 800xl. Well... we did win and to me this was a life changing event, since I am still a huge Atari 8bit fan.

 

And yes, when I was a kid, I really wished I had all the games my C64 friends had, but I did stick with the a8. And now I am happy I did!

Edited January 12, 2019 by Marius

[kiwilove]

For me in 1982 it was an easy choice - with no C-64 around. The Vic-20 was unimpressive alongside the Atari 400. The Atari 800 was priced around the Apple II pricing but had a lot better specs for it graphically. Buying an Atari 800 in London when the prices were starting to drop a little - was the obvious best choice. 1983 seemed to be the best year for Ataris then - with the surprise appearance of Encounter and Blue Max - to name only a few.

Though it took me 3 to 5 years before I really got stuck into doing something with graphics on the machine - like this example and much, much more.

(I wasn't into programming - but playing around with pixels - yes.)

 

 

Harvey

[shoestring]

If I could go back and have my choice all over again then Id definitely have chosen an Apple //e, thats the machine I wanted originally but we just could never afford one. It was the first computer I ever used thanks to my school. I was into programming so this was the ideal machine to get started, with its open architecture, excellent manuals, powerful basic and built in machine code monitor. The c64 would be my second choice and thats somewhat based on demographics, thats the machine 90% of folks owned in my area and other platforms were virtually non existent spare some Amstrad CPC and TI/99 users.

 

The Atari 800xl would have been a great choice but unfortunately they had really poor distribution in Australia so you couldnt even get a machine easily, software was hard to come by. My best friend had an Atari 400 and he struggled to find software, he would always complain about that.In the beginning Commodore and Atari used Futuretronics here in Australia as a distributor but both manufacturers ran into problems with them, Commodore quickly dropped them early on but Atari carried on using them until Jack bought the company. The ST had a very good presence in Australia they sold a lot of those machines here.

 

I continued using the Apple IIs in school even though we had some c64s in our library. So I would spend many hours during recess and lunchtime typing in programs and learning how to code on it. Our Maths teacher would even take time out of his lunchtime and help us troubleshoot our programs. When I went home I just played games on the c64 because I could not find much information on assembly programming or knew which tools I needed to get started.

 

Overall the c64 was difficult to program on due to its closed architecture. You needed tools or expensive hardware add-ons that simply were not available from retailers. I recall a freeze frame or action replay cartridge cost around $50-$100 which was a lot of money back then.

Edited January 13, 2019 by shoestring

[JamesD]

To revisit the RAM upgrade for the C64 question, I did some homework, and there are several RAM upgrades available, though I'm not sure they are what the poster wanted.
The REU (RAM Expansion Unit) sold with up to 512K and had built in DMA. You access memory only VIA the DMA from what I can tell.
The REU is nice if you want to load up a lot of data and to be able to transfer it to main memory very quickly, but it's not suited to banking between different programs for multitasking.
The demo Commodore used displays a spinning earth, but the most practical use is probably a RAM disk, or disk cache.
Something like UCSD Pascal which supported modules that could be swapped in or out of RAM to support programs larger than memory would benefit a lot with caching, but I don't think there was an official version of it. Wizardry supposedly used a port of the P-Code interpreter, but I can't really confirm that.
BBS software used it to speed up switching between sections of the BBS, and GEOS supported it, but there wasn't a lot of other commercial software that used it.

There are some mods for the REU with 1MB or more. The 2MB mod can be found here: ftp://www.zimmers.net/pub/cbm/documents/projects/memory/reu/Beyond512K.txt
There were some similar upgrades such as geoRAM, and the CMD RAMlink which was designed to act like a RAM Disk with up to 16MB or RAM.
I'm guessing the latter was used on some BBS systems.

BASIC 7.0 in the C128 actually has commands to support the REU, so I'm sure some BASIC programs take advantage of it.
The ROM might need patched to support the large upgrades though.

Which brings me to the more preferred RAM upgrade which is called a C128. It probably has the only practical memory upgrade if you wished to do something like multi-tasking.
I'm sure an internal C64 banked RAM upgrade is possible, but it would require some sort of internal add on MMU.

 

As for the MS-DOS/Sparta thingy part of the original question, the closest thing to an MS-DOS like operating system would be CP/M on the C128.
MS-DOS kinda comes from CP/M. Is that cheating?

If you want me to go back in time and pick another computer, my only affordable choice in 1982 is the VIC-20.

I didn't like the VIC, and the C64 didn't come out for several months after I got my CoCo.
The Atari 400 keyboard was a non-starter, the XL series didn't hit until over a year later.
The Apple II+ was too expensive.
The TRS-80 Model I was discontinued, and the Model III was too expensive, though the Model III 16K tape machines would have been close.
Maybe I could have built an LNW-80 kit. I would have liked that machine, but I would have had to buy some of the parts myself, it cost about as much as the cheapest Model III.

In reality, I probably would have waited, and ended up with a C64 just due to timing and capabilities for the price.
The PEEK/POKE orgy of a BASIC would have been a PITA, but I would have dealt with it.
If the 600XL had come out in 1982, I might have gone with it for the BASIC, and for Star Raiders.
The C64 had almost no software yet, but I didn't have a lot of store bought stuff back in the day anyway.

With what I know now, programming the Atari or C64 would not be difficult.
I think the Atari takes a little more effort to get the most out of it, but the results are worth it and modern tools help.
Drawing lines on the C64's oddball bitmap is a PITA, but once you have a working line routine, it's no big deal. That was published way back in the day.

BTW, anyone looking for Commodore related hardware, Retro Innovations has a lot of C64 upgrades including officially licensed Jiffydos, as well as some neat coco stuff.
The owner is Jim Brain, I've chatted with him on Discord. Great guy! Retro Innovations goes to a lot of computer shows.

Edited January 13, 2019 by JamesD

[kiwilove]

Back then - we were the guinea pigs for that new hobby called 'home computing'. We didn't know that the hardware would last around 5 to 10 years at best - only for videogamers to find that's the cycle to expect for new hardware to last? Going onto 16 bit computers/consoles/etc - eventually leaving the 8-bit hardware altogether. I would have liked to have kept my Atari 800 - but simply could not afford to do so. (or my 600XL/800XL/130XE).

 

Or that the old hardware can be fully emulated in software running at their full (normal) speed on the latest PCs available.

And it is through emulation - that I could replay those old favourite classic coin-ops for almost nothing.

 

I would not have guessed that I would return to working on graphics for the Atari 400/800 all over again to surpass what was done in 'Hawkquest' - and work on others I would not have dreamed of doing.

 

Hopefully there are still unexpected surprises to show up - on any old hardware?

 

Harvey

[JamesD]

To revisit the RAM upgrade for the C64 question, I did some homework, and there are several RAM upgrades available, though I'm not sure they are what the poster wanted.

...

BTW, anyone looking for Commodore related hardware, Retro Innovations has a lot of C64 upgrades including officially licensed Jiffydos, as well as some neat coco stuff.

The owner is Jim Brain, I've chatted with him on Discord. Great guy! Retro Innovations goes to a lot of computer shows.

 

I left off something. The latest RAM upgrade proposal from... Retro Innovations. Oops

http://www.go4retro.com/2018/05/21/ram-expansion-for-the-c64/

[kiwilove]

I think it was Ozisoft who first handled Atari hardware/software sales in New Zealand and Australia - their pricing always seemed to be on the high side - and I wonder is this due to how they could not get any discount in importing from the USA?

Monaco who took over in NZ when the XL/XE line appeared - prices were more affordable for the general public.

 

User Group support makes a great deal of difference - it so happens that the local Atari User Group started in my bedroom - at that time. For those programming it was essential to get the Atari 400/800 Operating System User Manual - text. Not cheap but worthwhile for those able to pore over it.

 

I never got a good vibe from the local C-64 user group - that I visited a few times. Never made any good contacts with any C-64 programmers/etc anywhere to seriously consider working on anything C-64. I did manage to draw a few C-64 pics when I did have a C-64 for around 10 months - did go from a tape drive to floppy - had to get the Action Replay cart to speed it up to make it worthwhile. Must have sold it to go onto a Amiga 500.

 

Harvey

[shoestring]

I definitely remember Ozisoft. My understanding is that they were strictly a software publisher / distributer in Australia & NZ, just video games as far as I know. The other big publisher was Activision. I don’t remember Ozisoft getting involved in hardware distribution but I recall having a few titles on tape published under that label.

[kiwilove]

The price in 1980 for the TRS-80 Dick Smith clone 'System-80' was around NZ$1200 - and I know the Atari 400 was priced around NZ$1295 around 1981/82. The Vic-20 was priced less - at around $900 - both these machines will drop in price to around $400 and less each within 3 years.

The Atari 800 16K would be around NZ$2000? or a bit less than this?

The C-64 was priced around the Atari 400 pricing when it first appeared in mid 1983 and would drop to almost 1/2 it's price some 3 years later.

 

Harvey

[JamesD]

The price in 1980 for the TRS-80 Dick Smith clone 'System-80' was around NZ$1200 - and I know the Atari 400 was priced around NZ$1295 around 1981/82. The Vic-20 was priced less - at around $900 - both these machines will drop in price to around $400 and less each within 3 years.

The Atari 800 16K would be around NZ$2000? or a bit less than this?

The C-64 was priced around the Atari 400 pricing when it first appeared in mid 1983 and would drop to almost 1/2 it's price some 3 years later.

 

Harvey

No wonder the Dick Smith VZ200 was popular

[Gunstar]

To revisit the RAM upgrade for the C64 question, I did some homework, and there are several RAM upgrades available, though I'm not sure they are what the poster wanted.

The REU (RAM Expansion Unit) sold with up to 512K and had built in DMA. You access memory only VIA the DMA from what I can tell.

The REU is nice if you want to load up a lot of data and to be able to transfer it to main memory very quickly, but it's not suited to banking between different programs for multitasking.

The demo Commodore used displays a spinning earth, but the most practical use is probably a RAM disk, or disk cache.

Something like UCSD Pascal which supported modules that could be swapped in or out of RAM to support programs larger than memory would benefit a lot with caching, but I don't think there was an official version of it. Wizardry supposedly used a port of the P-Code interpreter, but I can't really confirm that.

BBS software used it to speed up switching between sections of the BBS, and GEOS supported it, but there wasn't a lot of other commercial software that used it.

There are some mods for the REU with 1MB or more. The 2MB mod can be found here: ftp://www.zimmers.net/pub/cbm/documents/projects/memory/reu/Beyond512K.txt

There were some similar upgrades such as geoRAM, and the CMD RAMlink which was designed to act like a RAM Disk with up to 16MB or RAM.

I'm guessing the latter was used on some BBS systems.

BASIC 7.0 in the C128 actually has commands to support the REU, so I'm sure some BASIC programs take advantage of it.

The ROM might need patched to support the large upgrades though.

Which brings me to the more preferred RAM upgrade which is called a C128. It probably has the only practical memory upgrade if you wished to do something like multi-tasking.

I'm sure an internal C64 banked RAM upgrade is possible, but it would require some sort of internal add on MMU.

 

 

I think you might have been referring to me and choosing Atari again, one reason being ram upgrades from third parties since even the days of the 800 and the Axlon standard with 128K+ upgrades. How the extra ram is implemented makes no difference to me as long as it is fast enough, and has software support. One thing the Atari Axlon and Rambo upgrades had, if often understated or unnoticed, was software support, beyond DOS's and Ramdisks. Many productivity programs supported Axlon and Rambo/XE extended ram, even if it wasn't highlighted or sometimes even mentioned. Some of it I've only discovered in recent years since I now have upgrades and the software detects it and lets me know! And more games than even I thought, (who always had and extended memory Atari starting with the 128K 130XE) and I am discovering them today. But I did know that one of my favorite games of all time, Alternate Reality: The Dungeon, checked for 48K, 64K or 128K memory upon loading, and ran appropriately based on what it found. Up to 4 disk drives too. And several other games had advanced features for extended memory.

 

So, if the C64 had valid extended memory options for it back then that the Atari had, and were supported as at least as well as the Atari's, then that would be a plus in the C64's catagory nullifying the Atari's plus there. But if only ramdisks and a DOS or GOS support it limitedly, then no, that's not good enough. Of course Atari didn't officially support extended memory until the XE line in '85, but third parties adjusted accordingly, for compatibility, at least in CPU mode and in Antic mode it got little support so it was of no real consequence to most expanded memory users, all the same commercial software still worked, rather Rambo or XE extended ram, except rare cases like Atariwriter 80 for use with the XEP80 column device.

 

Even after the XL range and +48K systems using the PORT B memory addressing, some of the same productivity software still was compatible with 800 Axlon 48K+extended memory addressing and RamboXL/XE standard 64K+PORT B memory addressing. Like Synapse Syncalc for one example.

 

As far as MS-DOS or CP/M, I have Atari's SpartaDOS X, and I have a Indus GT clone drive (CA-2001) that has CP/M built-in, so my system is still as good as a C128, though I am limited to 64K CP/M and can't expand to 512K like the C128. But, I still have 576K ram for my Atari side of my "system" and 80-columns when I need it on either the Atari or when using CP/M through the Atari. But wasn't the 128K-512K possible of the C128 only available in CP/M mode? Not for the C64 mode at all, right? Also, before the C128 came along, where there any third party ram expansions made for the C64, like Atari's have had since their first incarnation?

Edited January 13, 2019 by Gunstar

[JamesD]

And arguments like that are where we go from a comparison to fanboy.

Just a few facts here.

Those RAM expansions may not be what you were looking for, but whether or not something is "good enough" would depend on what a program needs to do, not just if it's the same thing as another machine.

You have to remember that just because a program uses expansion RAM on the Atari, doesn't mean it couldn't use something like the REU.
No you can't directly run code from an REU, and there are certainly applications that might require that, but transferring different chunks of code into the same address space and executing it could serve the same purpose as bank switching, only slower. You can also do things like transfer ithe REU's contents to the screen via DMA faster than the 6502 can. I'm not sure what you can do with DMA on the Atari, but it is an option. And as I stated before, the C128 had support for the REU from BASIC. You'd need to resort to some sort of machine language add on for the Atari to use over 48K from BASIC.

The C64 came out with 64K of RAM. The Atari did not. Programmers had to decide if they were going to support the 48K max 800 and 400, or if their programs would only run on an XL or newer. This WAS an issue back in the day. So not every program may even support 64K that could have used it.

The 130XE came out the same year as the C128. So there's not much difference timeline wise, but the C128 includes 80 columns, a higher clock speed, and there were a LOT of C128 versions of programs. CP/M support came with the computer, not an expensive add on.
Just because you enter the C64 mode on the C128, does not mean the new features are not available to the programmer. The 128K would still be accessible, and some programmers even found out how to take advantage of the higher clock speed in C64 mode. I have no idea how many games take advantage of that, but that was pointed out to me in another thread somewhere.

The first mention for the Axilon upgrade I found was from 1983, and that article refers to it as a RAM disk. So at least for some period of time, that's no better than the REU. The similar argument over RAM size applies here as before. Programmers had to decide whether to support a 3rd party upgrade that very few people had. How much of the software that supports it is recent? Is REU compatible with the 130XE expanded RAM? If not, then programmers have to decide how or if they will even support it. The same holds true for any RAM upgrade though.

This isn't a simple Atari wins again argument.

FWIW, the Retro Innovations cart supports memory paging and legacy GEO RAM compatibility, but I don't know if anything like it existed back in the day, and I don't see it available for sale yet.

[Heaven/TQA]

Just to be fair....

 

Maybe I missed something but where does an stock 800 XL has 64k RAM?

 

The C64 basicly has even more than 64k.... counting RAM under IO plus color ram?

[shoestring]

I believe you mean one of the bank-switching modes via the 6510? Which basically allows you to turn off the I/O from $D000-$DFFF and turn on the RAM underneath it. Fairly handy trick that a lot of programmers used to store sprites and tiles.

[carlsson]

I believe the 64K is inclusive color memory etc?

https://dustlayer.com/c64-architecture/2013/4/13/ram-under-rom

 

Besides I definitely thought the 800XL comes with 64K RAM. At least the majority of sources say it does?

Edited January 14, 2019 by carlsson

[Faicuai]

What's really puzzling in this never-ending tit-for-tat dance of replies is little or no insight at all on the systems' ARCHITECTURE and real potential, rather than individual features and gimmicks. The latter dominated most of the arguments during the 80's, but in light in modern developments (in turn derived from much faster coding and debugging tools), the former perspective (system architecture) should actually be at the center-front of this discussion, instead!

 

Two specific examples (which could help reframe the entire discussion and center it around modern-times know-how):

1. Real Rime, 60 fps video-playback
2. every-day, administrative work on "cutting-edge" modern DOS implementations.

Having the ability to play 60fps video with NOTHING else other than an IDE storage device attached on a cart port, seems to me like a great starting point for exploring and defining the absolute limits of host's SYSTEMIC performance and throughput, especially if we put that in the context of the YEARS of development and introduction to the market.

 

But on a more practical and evident scenario, I actually find the DOS admin. tasks (which I regularly execute on my systems) a more compelling case. Take for instance SDX 4.49c running off whatever you want (Incognito, Ultimate or an 8Mbit cart). Then run a CLX command on a 32MB IDE / APT SDX-formatted partition. I would REALLY, REALLY like to see a vis--a-vise, SYSTEMIC performance comparison between both systems on that (much more practical) scenario.

 

The above case is particularly compelling because the LOGICAL units of information being routed and handled by the system are FAR larger than CPU's 8-bit registers, data bus, and even addressable RAM (in other words, well beyond the architecture of the CPUs themselves!!!) Let's not even talk about loading and flashing a 512Kbytes firmware update, a disk-based Macro Assembler (for even a smaller program) or simply running a macro on a full-fledged word-processor like Last Word.

 

There are MANY of us here, in this forum, that are (and have ALWAYS been) interested in every-day productivity applications, and not just kiddie gaming. I ALWAYS knew that there was much more to the Atari's potential than what our eyes met at the time... And a fully-featured, out-of-this-world sound-and-graphics demo like Starr Raiders could not drive me away from the notion that the machine was TRULY capable, indeed, of doing much. much more than what I as seeing.

 

So which system has the overall superior architecture? Which system allows to cover MORE ground, and with how much effort or ease? We would then put that in a historical context, considering the years of R&D and final release of each system.

 

That to me is a more up-to-our-times question and probably a much more elaborate discussion, if you ask me...

Edited January 14, 2019 by Faicuai

[Gunstar]

I believe the 64K is inclusive color memory etc?

https://dustlayer.com/c64-architecture/2013/4/13/ram-under-rom

 

Besides I definitely thought the 800XL comes with 64K RAM. At least the majority of sources say it does?

There is 64K of memory on the dram chips if that is what you mean. How much is actually available to the programmer depends on the language used and if they need the OS for the program or can disable it and use the extra "16K" bank there. Technically, 2K is always reserved for I/O so there is really only 62K total ram available unless it is also possible to shut of I/O like was mentioned above, doing on a C64.

 

It was also mentioned above that on Atari's you are restricted to 48K with BASIC (which technially is about 40K because BASIC takes up 8K), but as far as I know, you are perfectly capable of accessing extended memory from BASIC, And OSS BASIC XE makes it even easier.

 

JamesD also accused me of being a fanboy. Damn straight I'm an Atari 8-bit fanboy, and for every reason I've stated. I didn't just decide to pick a company, buy their computer and blindly dedicate myself to being a loyal fanboy of the computer/company just based arbitrarily , I became an Atari 8-bit fanboy after I ended up with the machine for reason I stated previously, after some research, it wasn't my first choice, or first computer for that matter, it was an upgrade that I could afford with the maximum memory I could get at the time, for less than the C128 or Apple IIe/c 128K. I became a life-long fanboy after owning, using and upgrading it for many years and learning and realizing how much better it is to an Apple II or C64 in far more ways than I believe the C64 or Apple II are better than the Atari. Not just the engineering of the main computer, but as I said, the SIO smart peripheral system, far faster drives than the C64, incredible SpartDOS, etc., etc. I'm a fanboy to the core because I honestly believe, over-all, the Atari 800/XL/XE line is the best 6502 based computer ever designed, by the legend Jay Miner, who designed the best 16-bit computer ever too, in the Amiga. I'm a fanboy of engineers and the hardware they create. I don't give a damn if the name stamped on my Atari is "ATARI" or what ever.

 

And stuff like whether or not CP/M came built in or was an add-on isn't my point. My point is the computer was cheaper, and later if I so choose, options were available to add-on such features as CP/M capability through SIO smart peripherals, all really their own little computer with CPU, OS and ram, no drivers or installation needed, instant communication. True plug-and-play, plug in, turn on, auto-boot. So I didn't give up CP/M possibilities if I didn't get a C128. Of course this was all later learned, when I was looking to buy my 6502 machine with 128K, I didn't give a damn about CP/M anyway. I would have been paying more for something I didn't want or need.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Gunstar

[Gunstar]

I do realize that the C64/128 line's serial I/O also has or can have smart peripherals, etc., but Atari 8-bit's SIO is better and faster. It was the forefather to USB.

[JamesD]

Just to be fair....

 

Maybe I missed something but where does an stock 800 XL has 64k RAM?

 

The C64 basicly has even more than 64k.... counting RAM under IO plus color ram?

 

 

...

The C64 came out with 64K of RAM. The Atari did not. Programmers had to decide if they were going to support the 48K max 800 and 400, or if their programs would only run on an XL or newer. This WAS an issue back in the day. So not every program may even support 64K that could have used it.

 

...

The 400, 800, and 600XL did not come with 64K, and you couldn't even upgrade the 400 or 800 to 64K at that time.

The C64 ALWAYS came with 64K of RAM.

 

If you are writing a program and wan't to maximize sales, do you:

A) Require 64K and eliminate a large part of the user base

B) Write multiple versions at additional cost with no promise of increased sales

C) Develop for the lowest common denominator

 

For some applications, B makes a lot of sense once 128K became available due to the large increase of RAM, but how many programs fit into this category?

I do realize a program can detect 64K and use it if it's there, that might make sense for a professional application, but look back through the game catalog and see how many only require 16K.

Any software that came out before the 1200XL didn't support more than 48K, and anything that came out before the 130XE probably didn't support 128K.

How many programs received an upgrade to support more RAM?

 

The C128 saw quite a bit of support from popular business/productivity applications, but that often had more to do with 80 column support than more RAM, and you had more speed as well.

The C128 certainly saw the same problem though. The vast majority of titles were written only to support the C64.

But the C64 ALWAYS came with 64K of RAM (except maybe a few initial carts for the Max), and you never had to fit a program into 16K, or 48K.

 

 

I do realize that the C64/128 line's serial I/O also has or can have smart peripherals, etc., but Atari 8-bit's SIO is better and faster. It was the forefather to USB.

Are you talking stock? Or including high speed loaders?

 

There were high speed loaders published in Compute! for the VIC-20, C64, and Plus/4, and a much faster one in a German magazine in 1987.

So for the price of a magazine, the time it takes to type it in, and if you didn't mind waiting on an initial file transfer for the loader, you could significantly speed up drive I/O.

 

Then there are fast loader carts, where I/O was sped up as soon as you turned on the machine.

Some even added additional DOS commands to simplify drive use.

Some carts supposedly had built in DMA. I have no idea what cart had that.

 

Here is a comparison of *some* of the options. JiffyDOS isn't the fastest here, but I think it's one of the most common upgrades.

https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41482

 

This was the fastest loader: "Prof. DOS+ : CBM 5334 B/trk 1&* 26670 B/s "

But that's a pretty simple load comparison, and I don't think it's faster overall.

Here is a page dedicated to it:

http://d81.de/ProfessionalDOS/

 

I don't know any more about it.

 

 

 

As for video, I already said that was one thing the C64 wasn't good at. Not enough colors, and not a fast enough drive. Same goes for the C128.

The Plus/4 drive/video demo seems to replace the parallel drive on it, and it makes for some very impressive video.

One question. How many Atari programs use video anyway?

Yeah, there is a player, but is there any way to integrate it into a program?

If nothing else, it would be awesome to have intro video, cut scenes, end credits, etc... but is there anything like that yet?

 

[JamesD]

...

JamesD also accused me of being a fanboy. Damn straight I'm an Atari 8-bit fanboy, and for every reason I've stated. I didn't just decide to pick a company, buy their computer and blindly dedicate myself to being a

...

It wasn't an accusation, it was an observation.

 

[kiwilove]

It would be interesting to know - exactly how much RAM did most C-64 games use up? Particularly those which did come on cassette.

Take for example - Sanxion, Delta, IO and such like.

 

In the Atari 400/800 era - the first cartridges were 8K - the likes of Star Raiders and Basketball - but 16K soon became the standard with Galaxian, Donkey Kong and the others. With the likes of Missile Command, Centipede and Qix - these should be able to fit within 8K? because of their simple graphics. But these were ROM cartridges - and I presume they worked fine with the 16K Atari 400.

Now when these were pirated - I don't think they'll work anymore with 16K Atari 400s because of them loading from cassette/disk? Perhaps the programmers/etc can say why they wouldn't. I would guess that most users had 48K as standard (by this time) - and there was not the need/desire to try modifying them so as to run on the 16K Atari 400s.

Of course there were games that loaded from tape - so as to run on 16K Atari 400s. Frogger, Shamus and Sea Dragon comes to mind. Games with more extensive graphics required a minimum of 32K to run - such as Blue Max? and others... 32K may seem to be an odd configuration - until you looked inside a Atari 800 and see that it had the 3 slots so as to take banks of 16K RAM to slot in. At that time even 16K RAM was not cheap.

As to 48K to 64K - for the Ataris - you have the first 2 Lucasfilm games - Ball Blazer and Rescue from Fractalus - and Dropzone being another landmark game. The later 2 Lucasfilm games - Eidolon and Koronis Rift however required 64K to run.

 

Harvey

[Gunstar]

It wasn't an accusation, it was an observation.

 

Of course, a poor choice of wording on my part. But then, really, I think fanboy is a poor choice of words too; as I describe it, blindingly loyal to something, ignoring facts and fair opinions. I'm an Atari 8-bit fanatic, but not a "fanboy."

I have my reasons for preferring it based on both technical facts and personal preferences accepting it's shortcomings and openly admitting them, compared to other similar computers, and finding them more acceptable considering other advantages, and find it a better ratio, in areas I prefer, to the shortcomings and advantages of the C64 or other 8-bits.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Gunstar