Atari Vs C64 --- 80s Computer scene etc chat...

[thomasholzer]

Sid is not much better than Pokey, just listen to 'The Big Demo'. Anyway, Pokey's were used in numerous arcade machines.

Edited April 23, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Cybergoth]

By "background" I mean you point the audio hardware at your data and then it automatically streams the digitized sample without you having to manually bang the hardware ~262 times / second.

 

I must admit that I don't have the slightest clue how samples are done technically on the C64

[Cybergoth]

Sid is not much better than Pokey, just listen to 'The Big Demo'. Anyway, Pokey's were used in numerous arcade machines.

 

Ah, so that is why most mid-80s C64 conversions outdo their Arcade counterparts regarding music

[thomasholzer]

It was just down to pricing, C64/fdd was lots cheaper than A8/fdd, and oodles cheaper than Apple ][/fdd.

 

it was not only cheaper, it was a better machine for gaming (sfx,gfx), which both machines were bought for at the first place.

 

Turricans, Creatures, Mayhem, Maniac Mansion, Defender of The Crown, Last Ninjas, Armalyte, Impossible Mission, Giana, California Games, Enforcer, Katakis, Skate or Die, Newcomer, Rick Dangerous, Midnight Resistance, Predator, Driller... the list goes on and on, games that could have been not done in as good quality on a8 as on the c64.

 

That doesn't count for anything, Apple ][ was still supported with games in the USA when support for C64 was dropped, and they were of excellent quality too.

A8 could have done those games you mentioned, software houses just didn't think there was money to be made. Just compare The Brundles (A8) with Lemmings (C64)

Edited April 23, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Cybergoth]

Turricans, Creatures, Mayhem, Maniac Mansion, Defender of The Crown, Last Ninjas, Armalyte, Impossible Mission, Giana, California Games, Enforcer, Katakis, Skate or Die, Newcomer, Rick Dangerous, Midnight Resistance, Predator, Driller... the list goes on and on, games that could have been not done in as good quality on a8 as on the c64.

 

A8 could have done those games you mentioned, software houses just didn't think there was money to be made.

 

Of course, the A8 could've easily gotten shitty conversions of the games listed above, just like the ones Speccy and Amstrad users usually got

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I must admit that I don't have the slightest clue how samples are done technically on the C64

IIRC with the volume register.

[vdub_bobby]

I must admit that I don't have the slightest clue how samples are done technically on the C64

IIRC with the volume register.

According to...wikipedia ...

Upon setting the main output volume/gain on the 6581's 4 bit volume control, a click noise would be produced on the output. This was proportional to the volume difference, both positive and negative, and giving an opportunity to play 4-bit digitized sounds on the commodore 64 (The digitalization/sampling had to be done using external means, typically a simple 8 bit sampler circuit attached to the 8 bit parallel part of the parallel/serial communications port). This flaw was used in several games (probably first on Ghostbusters, whereby pressing the space key everything would stop, but the theme-word "Ghostbusters!" would be played) and in many demos. The sounds produced was typically some words, but most often percussion instruments like drums and the like - the amount of sound possible to store on a fraction of 64 kilobytes was very limited. Also, it was hugely CPU intensive

[thomasholzer]

Sid is not much better than Pokey, just listen to 'The Big Demo'. Anyway, Pokey's were used in numerous arcade machines.

 

Ah, so that is why most mid-80s C64 conversions outdo their Arcade counterparts regarding music

 

 

Turricans, Creatures, Mayhem, Maniac Mansion, Defender of The Crown, Last Ninjas, Armalyte, Impossible Mission, Giana, California Games, Enforcer, Katakis, Skate or Die, Newcomer, Rick Dangerous, Midnight Resistance, Predator, Driller... the list goes on and on, games that could have been not done in as good quality on a8 as on the c64.

 

A8 could have done those games you mentioned, software houses just didn't think there was money to be made.

 

Of course, the A8 could've easily gotten shitty conversions of the games listed above, just like the ones Speccy and Amstrad users usually got

 

Probably from German and UK programmers, but USA programmers were more professional, especially Lucasfilm, Microprose, EA, SSI, Origin etc. If those companies would have stuck with A8, games on this platform would shine, no doubt about it.

Edited April 23, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Oswald]

Sid is not much better than Pokey, just listen to 'The Big Demo'. Anyway, Pokey's were used in numerous arcade machines.

 

 

please take your time, download sidplay here:

 

http://www.gsldata.se/c64/spw/

 

then check these examples:

 

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jammer/Mr_Marvellous.sid (trying to make the sid say "mr marvellous" without digis in fact trying to imitate singing on one chanel)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jammer/Hot_Mommas.sid (sid trying to say:oh fuck me, oh yes, oh yes without digis again)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jammer/Big_Beat.sid (fucking ammazing instruments even for someone with 22 years of c64ing)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/A/Agemixer/Freestyler.sid (remember the hit freestyler? this is a cover managing to have the sid say"freestyler" and other words)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/B/Behdad...ctric_Jesus.sid (ammazing lead instrument)

 

thank you

[Cybergoth]

Probably from German and UK programmers, but USA programmers were more professional, especially Lucasfilm, Microprose, EA, SSI, Origin etc.

 

That's true and wrong at the same time. They where indeed more professional, but they would nowhere utilize an 8-Bit machine to the maximum technically. Because of being more adult and professional, they never had that scenerish competition of European youngster programmers that were always trying to beat each other with better music and more sprites on the screen, etc.

 

Gameplay wise American companies would often do much deeper and complex games, the whole market was different. European companies wouldn't do games requiring a keyboard overlay and 200 page manuals like a Microprose game and no American programmer could've written an arcadish game with the aural/visual impact of Wizball in 1987.

 

If those companies would have stuck with A8, games on this platform would shine, no doubt about it.

 

Maybe. I could imagine an excellent Pirates! port on the A8, but that's a radically different kind of game than Turrican or Last Ninja. And even if e.g. Origin had done one more Ultima for the A8, wouldn't it have been just another fugly b/w one?

[thomasholzer]

Sid is not much better than Pokey, just listen to 'The Big Demo'. Anyway, Pokey's were used in numerous arcade machines.

 

 

please take your time, download sidplay here:

 

http://www.gsldata.se/c64/spw/

 

then check these examples:

 

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jammer/Mr_Marvellous.sid (trying to make the sid say "mr marvellous" without digis in fact trying to imitate singing on one chanel)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jammer/Hot_Mommas.sid (sid trying to say:oh fuck me, oh yes, oh yes without digis again)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/J/Jammer/Big_Beat.sid (fucking ammazing instruments even for someone with 22 years of c64ing)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/A/Agemixer/Freestyler.sid (remember the hit freestyler? this is a cover managing to have the sid say"freestyler" and other words)

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/MUSICIANS/B/Behdad...ctric_Jesus.sid (ammazing lead instrument)

 

thank you

 

 

Thank you Oswald, don't need to, C64 user here since 1985/6, you don't have to convince me about Sid, I can do side by side comparisons with the real items

Edited April 23, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Oswald]

Turricans, Creatures, Mayhem, Maniac Mansion, Defender of The Crown, Last Ninjas, Armalyte, Impossible Mission, Giana, California Games, Enforcer, Katakis, Skate or Die, Newcomer, Rick Dangerous, Midnight Resistance, Predator, Driller.

 

 

most of these games feature ingamegfx that the a8 cant even do as stills (turrican, creatures, mayhem, defender, last ninjas, for example) so how do you think the a8 could even match or exceed their quality? and we havent talked about yet movement, c64 sprites and scrolling can move in double the resolution of the a8 in the X direction.

 

few examples:

 

[Oswald]

Have you hard speech on the sid without digis thomas, or are you stuck and thinking sid = rob hubbard quality ? even these days musicians push the sid more and more, so if you dont check out my examples you will not know what is the SID really capable of. but probably you dont even want to know, or do you?

[Cybergoth]

BTW: One thing I really don't get with the A8, even if does have so many more colors than the C64, why does the C64 colors usually look so much better?

 

Pretty basic example:

 

Encounter C64 (from Lemon64):

 

Encounter A8 (from Atarimania):

 

So even when the C64 has less shades of green and blue, at least the ones it has are looking good, no?

[vdub_bobby]

I think you lost your lemon64 screenshot somewhere, Cybergoth. But I went to L64 and looked for myself and...based on the screenshots, the A8 version looks too dark. But the C64 version looks like a dayglo nightmare

 

They touched on this in the 7800 vs. NES thread; the A8/7800/2600 all generate colors the same way and...well, I'll just quote Eric Ball, since maybe he knows what he's talking about (I sure don't!):

The Atari consoles (and probably the computers) all create color via direct Y/C. And because the Y output is linear, that means (due to how gamma works) that ~50% of the colors are fairly dark on a normal TV. This probably is more an issue for current developers (who use emulators with over-bright palettes) than the original developers (who would have tested on real hardware, though maybe with "hot" TVs). Also, the onscreen color has the same amplitude as the colorburst signal, which limits it's saturation somewhat.

I think the basic idea is that as the colors get brighter they get washed out.

 

But you can still make stuff look good, I think in this case whoever coded Encounter just picked poor colors.

Edited April 23, 2008 by vdub_bobby

[thomasholzer]

Have you hard speech on the sid without digis thomas, or are you stuck and thinking sid = rob hubbard quality ? even these days musicians push the sid more and more, so if you dont check out my examples you will not know what is the SID really capable of. but probably you dont even want to know, or do you?

 

Yeah sorry you got me there, I am not in the least interested if that guy from Timbaland uses Sid in his stupid music. I am only interested in the gaming era.

Edited April 23, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Oswald]

Yeah sorry you got me there, I am not in the least interested if that guy from Timbaland uses Sid in his stupid music. I am only interested in the gaming era.

 

you have brought up a demo as an example of the pokey's capabilities, and when I try to show you some sid tunes, you refuse to check them saying that you're only interested in the gaming era. very unfair and incorrect behaviour I'd say. and then I have choosed polite words to describe your behaviour.

 

one thing could be said for sure: you can not judge how much better the sid is as long you refuse to check some tunes which stands really out with their sounds. so stop making such statements from now on. thank you

Edited April 23, 2008 by Oswald

[+warerat]

:

Antic is the first custom Chip designed for a specific computer which has the ability of creating its own DMA without using the STOP command of the CPU.

 

probably the first in the home computers, but otherwise DMA was invented before Antic. Also can you cite any source which states antic can read from the memory without stopping the cpu? I'm pretty sure thats not true. c64 shares the bus 50-50% of the time with the gfx chip, so something like that must be present in a8 aswell, which I've never heard of. a8 stops the cpu whenever gfx date is to be fetched, it even stops the cpu for memory refresh cycles.

 

That's why the DMA doesn't take as much time as many people think. The ANTIC chip also uses the DMA to run its own program, called the "Dislpaylist" , and it has its own RAM for storing a line of graphics data, so it is a real co-processor, even if very basic.

 

calling registers as RAM is incorrect, I can agree on the rest.

 

ANTIC has 48 bytes of internal memory-- enough for one scan line. Really, it does. Need me to cite a source? Look at the internal diagram on the patent for the design, page 4. http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT4296476. Right above the middle of the diagram: "DISPLAY RAM".

 

You can argue semantics, but RAM is just a collection of "registers". Need a citation? Open any digital design text.

[TMR]

The c64 is just a R.E'd Atari 8bit....albeit SLIGHTLY slower (R.E'd=Reverse Engineered)

 

That's still not the case no matter how many times you argue it, please stop.

 

"Although we were indeed trying to outperform the Atari line, as we felt they represented some of the best graphics and sound that were available up to that point, we did not reverse engineer the Atari products." - Bob Yannes

 

"Anyone who knows the register maps of the two chip-sets knows that the Commodore chips are in no way "clones" of Atari hardware--that is rather absurd." - Bob Yannes

 

In saying that...if our 6510/6502/8502 codeheaded friends from the a8 and c64 world didn't apply any trickery (i e advanced graphics coding techniques like gbug/hip/tip/cin, or FLI/IFLI etc and whatnot to their programs...both machines have roughly the same capabilities

 

Not really, no.

[TMR]

I think you lost your lemon64 screenshot somewhere, Cybergoth. But I went to L64 and looked for myself and...based on the screenshots, the A8 version looks too dark. But the C64 version looks like a dayglo nightmare

 

Some of the Lemon images use a wonky palette, the C64 doesn't usually glow in the dark like that. The most common accusation aimed at the C64 is that the colours are "washed out" but personally i've always preferred them even when i had an 800XL.

 

But you can still make stuff look good, I think in this case whoever coded Encounter just picked poor colors.

 

T'was Paul Woakes, the bloke who coded Mercenary.

[frogstar_robot]

Sid is not much better than Pokey, just listen to 'The Big Demo'. Anyway, Pokey's were used in numerous arcade machines.

 

True but arcade machines typically had the advantage of using two to four of them. Also, arcade machines had more cycles to spare for diddling the registers in those POKEYs. Yeah, the A8 can reproduce those sounds but it may not be able to do it and animate a game at the same time. I've also read some threads where some people are experimenting with clocking the POKEY at different rates. Did any arcade games ever manipulate the clock rate of it's POKEY's?

[Oswald]

You can argue semantics, but RAM is just a collection of "registers". Need a citation? Open any digital design text.

 

oh then the VICII has 64 bytes of internal RAM in this context. (40 bytes for gfx and 24 bytes for sprites per scanline) but there's a reason we differentiate between RAM (=slow outside chip storage, big amount) and registers (=onchip fast storage small compared to ram) because they are reffering to two different types of RAM, so why mix them up ? its not semantics. its emkay's misuse of terms. (again)

[Allas]

Oswald, I had heard a few sid tunes from your posts. Really, I did't know about them. Sounds cool, but it not exactly my type of tune. However I load them with Atari SIDPLAY and most of them work fine, and sounds ... you know ... very similar, according with the emulation level loss of quality. So, I think is correctly to said "Sid is not much better than Pokey"

 

But it's obvious the SID hardware is more advanced than POKEY, so it's more useful for games. But I think most of Atarians are happy with POKEY chip and never think to change with a SID or other chip.

 

On pictures you send , I think is the same old history, Atari and C64 have cons and pros, how best a game could be done, it's depending on what type of game is. Adding details to enhance the appearance of the game, it change according to the platform. That's the main reason, why some games are better on Atari and unreachable on a C64 computer (and viceversa).

 

Even Spectrum, technically inferior to C64 and Atari, have developed an advanced style of programming on his gold years, showing games that can be hard to code on a C64 and Atari.

 

At the last, I can said, the best way to compare computers, is having these computers. I hope you have an Atari. Certainly, sometimes it's difficult to explain why one computer seems to be better, theory helps a lot, but you need to feel the computer on your own hands. I have a 800XL, 130XE, C64, C128 and use them still for new software or testing purposes. Many years ago, a friend lend me a Sinclair Spectrum 48, and I can feel how good software was developed on this computer, screenshots doesn't justice.

 

Mayhem screens have 9 unique colors, and I always had said the appearance is nice. Although, Crownland have between 14-17 unique colors per screen. Mayhem is the work of a great pixel artist, on Atari we have only one great artist for this type of work. I think we are on disadvantage, but we are always working on new stuff.

[Oswald]

In saying that...if our 6510/6502/8502 codeheaded friends from the a8 and c64 world didn't apply any trickery (i e advanced graphics coding techniques like gbug/hip/tip/cin, or FLI/IFLI etc and whatnot to their programs...both machines have roughly the same capabilities

 

here you go, 2 bitmap pictures without tricks from the c64, one hires and one multicolor, and finally one multicolor charmode:

 

 

without any doubt a8 can not display such pictures in any of its built in modes without using extra trickery.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Oswald

[Oswald]

Oswald, I had heard a few sid tunes from your posts. Really, I did't know about them. Sounds cool, but it not exactly my type of tune. However I load them with Atari SIDPLAY and most of them work fine, and sounds ... you know ... very similar, according with the emulation level loss of quality. So, I think is correctly to said "Sid is not much better than Pokey"

 

do you know Trabants? its very similar to a mercedes, they both have wheels, doors, windscreens, steering wheels, seats, pedals, clutches, motor, etc. still the meredes is much better than the Trabant or well you as a trabant owner would say its not much better since the missing abs, airbag, airconditioning, gps, built in radio hifi, onboard computer from the trabant are simply just the emulation level loss of quality

 

On pictures you send , I think is the same old history, Atari and C64 have cons and pros.

 

nope. its not cons and pros. the c64 graphically can do more. period.

 

That's the main reason, why some games are better on Atari and unreachable on a C64 computer (and viceversa).

 

there are more games better on the c64 than vice versa.

 

Mayhem screens have 9 unique colors, and I always had said the appearance is nice. Although, Crownland have between 14-17 unique colors per screen.

 

the game Mayhem does that without any tricks and there are no restrictions as of what color can be used on which vertical area like in Crownland which pulls it off with tricks. How many colors can the atari show in charmode without tricks ? 5. and have only 128 chars, while the c64 can have 256, and even mix hires and multicolor in charmode. the c64 charmodes are undoubtedly more powerful. just like the bitmap modes, sprites, sid, scrolling resolution, etc.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Oswald