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

[Fröhn]

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

The C64 is very different from the A8. When developing the VIC2, the engineers looked at the following machines to decide upon features: TI99, A8, Intellivision (and ofcourse previous Commodore machines). They didn't reverse engineer, but picked the features they thought would be important for games and added more to it.

 

both machines have roughly the same capabilities

They are quite different what they can do and how to do it.

 

oh then the VICII has 64 bytes of internal RAM in this context. (40 bytes for gfx and 24 bytes for sprites per scanline)

Not only that. The VIC2 has 40x12 Bits plus 8x24 Bits which is 84 Bytes in total. And this only counts internal buffers, not registers

 

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.

A8 cannot display them even WITH trickery, especially the hires one.

[Rybags]

Actually, that should be 96 bytes inside Antic. 48 each for the character values, and the bitmap data (remembering it gets reused in OS modes 2 and 13).

 

Calling it RAM or registers doesn't really matter, if anything the technical term these days would be L1 cache.

[kenfused]

IMO Atari is better in

 

1. pallete choice (without dithering or other tricks)

2. overscan (vertical and horizontal with no trick needed other than creating the dlist and other setup yourself rather than letting the OS do it)

3. Scrolling. to have any row on the screen get data from almost anywhere in memory.

4. low rez graphics modes can be useful for games needing lots of cpu.

5. There are rare instances where the Player Missile system can be better for some effect than C64 sprites, but I would definitely rather have the C64 sprites*.

6. DLI system is a little more flexible (just set one bit for each row you want an interrupt on.

7. Ability to boot from disk without having to anything other than turn stuff on.

8. Stock disk drives (1050 vs. 1541)

9. I like pokey better for some sound effects and weird effects especially for classic arcade games. SID is obviously better at music and other sound effects. Very few programs tap pokey's potential.

[Shawn Jefferson]

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.

 

I think this is a very personal thing. I always disliked the color on the C64, since to me the colors looked too bright and "cartoon-like". I always preferred the A8 color. But, surprise, surprise, I owned an Atari 8-bit and it is what I was used to.

[supercat]

The C-64 floppy drive in itself isn't at fault.

 

That it is possible to load in software to effectively replace the drive's firmware with something almost halfway decent does not mean the original firmware (and even hardware) isn't pretty crummy.

 

Had Commodore specified that in all serial communications the master device (i.e. the computer) is responsible for clocking whether reading or writing, that would have eliminated much of the speed problem. Adding a little extra hardware for automatic clock generation (i.e. have to addresses for the data read/write port; a read or write of the upper address should send a clock pulse automatically) would have allowed speeds that were pretty decent at minimal cost, while providing immunity to timing disruptions.

[supercat]

The VIC-2 "palette RAM" aka Colour memory is off-chip.

 

The VIC-2 has a 16-entry palette ROM that is used to convert the 16 color codes to a combination of luma/chroma. Had they replaced that with a 16x7 or 16x8 semi-dual-port RAM on chip, that would have allowed for 16 colors to be chosen out of 128/256.

[peteym5]

Wow, lots of people are posting replies to this. You know I have tried out a few C64 games on an emulator and compared them to the Atari. I can say a few C64 games may look better, but some games seem to be lacking speed and animation was limited. The C64 might have had a better sprite system than the Atari player/missile graphics, but the Atari can overcome these limitations with DLIs or what some call multiplexers. Its not too hard to get over 10 sprites, even multicolored with programming. Something else about the C64 games seem to lack the sound that the Atari has where Pokey has 4 voices vs the SID 3 voices.

 

However, this does come down to the game design and programming. A good programmer knows how to get around system limitations and make use of its advantages. If you design an Atari game, you design it for Antic modes, DLIs, Player/Missile graphics, Pokey Sound on a 1.79mhz CPU. If you design it on a Commodore 64, you design it for a color mapped screen, sprites, and Sid sound on a 1mhz CPU.

 

But I can bring up the subject of What-Ifs here. What if Atari added more players or included an option to use a sprite system similar to the C64 or NES? What if the C64 upgraded its CPU to run at 2mhz or more? What if the Atari added a color map system or if either added option for higher resolutions. Would we be thinking differently about these machines. Neither machine had upgrades available for their video or audio systems, but the companies went on to build 16 bit machines that were not backward compatible. That is one of the reasons why the IBM PC & Clones started to dominate the market, backward compatibility.

[supercat]

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

 

RAM is a collection of registers which are writable via address and readable via address (the address inputs for writing and reading may be entirely independent). If the ANTIC or VIC-2 uses a counter to put data into the line buffer and a counter (whether the same one or different) read it out, then the line buffer should be accurately regarded as "RAM". If the data is stored in shift registers, or if a one-hot shifter is used to read out the data (as is done with the 2600's playfield) then the line buffer is not "RAM".

[GameEngine]

here you are, c64 _charmode_ used at its best _no_tricks_ whatsoever, this is the built in charmode:

 

 

Mayhem looks a bit colour flat. Crownland looks much better to me:

 

I find Mayhem graphics too similar across levels. It gets boring after a while which gives you no incentive to play that game. Crownland Graphics (possibly mainly due to changing color schemes) was suprising and much more rewarding to me.

Edited April 24, 2008 by GameEngine

[thomasholzer]

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

 

I don't think you understand. I have 100s of disks full of Sid tunes, I used to be a subscriber to Compunet, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compunet ), where I d/l the latest tunes and demos during the 80s. I can just flick a switch right now, and listen to Savage intro if I wanted to. I have 1000s of games with Sid music, why should I listen to more? Not interested. That is not incorrect behavior, but if you don't understand this, sorry about that.

And what kind of statements , correct or incorrect, I make or write is neither your business, nor for you to dictate. Thanking you.

 

 

Besides that, my comments are still spot on. Why did the programmers say the A8 is the better machine? I mean, they should know.

Edited April 24, 2008 by thomasholzer

[Heaven/TQA]

Question:

 

who of the "Die hard"-A8 fans have coded on C64? or vice verser?

[atariksi]

here you are, c64 _charmode_ used at its best _no_tricks_ whatsoever, this is the built in charmode:

...

atariksi,

 

maybe here you'll find what you need, I'm unsure what do you want to achieve exactly, but there are already projects which turn a pc into a fileserver using the stock protocol without fastload.

http://zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/crosspl...r/transfer.html

 

I wasn't thinking of making a fileserver-- just a way to transmit 2GB of audio-visual data from PC through joystick port of C64 (LDA $DC00 or $DC01) like I did with the Atari (LDA 54016). Got some problems though-- already sacrificed the auto-booting-- (1) audio is 4-bit and 5-bits/sample so looks like have to truncate a bit on the 5-bit samples, (2) images are 16..31 gray-scale so need some dithering algorithm, and (3) currently getting 2 frames/second with 11Khz audio track on Atari so hoping people here are right about Atari being apparently "1.79Mhz" or the CIA is faster than PIA. I guess (2) is the biggest problem even if I decide to slow down the frame rate since even text at 160*200 with shades seems to have apparently better resolution than 160*200 without shades.

[Rybags]

I've coded on both.

 

Co-authored a book on Atari, and did 3 games which were put into a book on the C-64.

My first ever full-time job was also programming educational software on the C-64.

 

We had a RAM-loaded extended BASIC and could just add new statements for whatever stuff was needed for the project.

 

I also lay claim to being the first in Australia to put sprites in the border - I saw it going in a computer shop on a game (I think it was Tau Ceti), so I went home and got programming.

My thoughts at the time were it had to have something to do with the shrunk border control, so it didn't take long to work out.

I never bothered trying to get rid of the side borders - until someone else did it, I thought it was impossible.

 

As far as ease of programming goes, it was Atari by a mile back in the day. Thanks to faster disk drive, better BASIC, and the versatility of being able to build Asm programs in modules then just load each segment seperately.

But, on the C-64 we had Machine Lightning, which only really trailed Mac-65 due to lack of DDT and being RAM-based only.

 

But, like people have said, there are various aspects to consider - the C-64 was in some ways easier for graphics, despite the way they do the bitmapping.

 

 

Just had a look - can't seem to find my C-64 work, might have to try and find my X-1541 and do some transferring. Also got a Novaload Tape Mastering system somewhere that some people might find interesting.

[TMR]

Besides that, my comments are still spot on. Why did the programmers say the A8 is the better machine? I mean, they should know.

 

Archer McLean's comment (you've attributed it to Zzap! 64 for some reason) was hardly surprising; the full version of the quote is regarding Dropzone, a game that was written around the Atari's hardware (and leans particularly on the hardware scrolling) so he had a fight to get it into the C64 - working on the "inferior" machine didn't bother him too much though, did it? On the other hand, Matthew Smith's comment is from a Spectrum programmer who never actually worked on either of the 6502-based machines (all of his games were converted to the C64 and A8 by other people, with disasterous results in the latter case) and he is known for enjoying a little controversy...

 

Either way, if the comments of just two programmers is enough to "win", you have Heaven, Frohn, Oswald, Thomas Jentzsch and myself amongst others all saying that the C64 is superior for sprites but i don't see everyone else going down without a fight.

[TMR]

who of the "Die hard"-A8 fans have coded on C64? or vice verser?

 

When i had my 800XL (my first machine was a VIC, then the Atari and i got a C64 third) i couldn't afford a disk drive so i didn't get around to doing any machine code (i'd learnt some on the VIC 20 but coding with tape-based Commodore kit is much easier, my first C64 game and real demo were written without a disk drive) but i did a fair bit of BASIC. More recently, i've written Reaxion for the A8 and have an almost complete port of my own Lunar Blitz that is merely lacking sound although i might go back into that one to make a few improvements before it's released. i've also done a few bits of unreleased demo and game code, written an APAC routine during a thread similar to this on the Retro Gamer message board and so forth so i know me way around. =-)

[Heaven/TQA]

it is interesting that a lot of people who never touched the "other side" are defending their machine or playing down the other simply by looking at spec sheets...

 

I was an A8 fanboy as well (and still I am...) but while touched the other machine with the sprites... I have to admit it is less "bad" than i first thought. Ok... it's hard when coming from A8 and you are missing some of the features but it's not soooo bad at all as I had thought... so grab DASM or any other cross assembler and you would be suprised...

 

I would like to see Oswald doing things as well... (Oswald, you as a 4x4 Chunky it would be a dream... )

Edited April 24, 2008 by Heaven/TQA

[Rybags]

I also lacked a disk drive for the first 20 months or so.

 

Didn't let that get in the way... once I had the 800XL I did a booter with single-block turbo copy of the Atari Asm/Ed cartridge. Used to load in about 30 seconds.

 

I also did a bit of comms stuff in the day. Made a cable that went from the Atari joystick port to C-64 serial port, and wrote the software on both machines.

It was a pretty simple system - the C-64 acted as "slave" and the Atari just instructed it to either send or receive whatever number of bytes to/from a given RAM address.

 

After that, I got the ST and wrote a 1050 emulator using the Assembler in DBASIC. It used the parallel port -> A8 Serial and worked somewhat like APE.

I also wrote a 6502 Disassembler on the ST - even transferred the A8 font over and wrote a screen routine to use it for 80x50 text, then allowed some debugging stuff in a vertical split window system.

The aim was to crack AR: The Dungeon. Didn't quite succeed there, only got to the point of decrypting the first few load stages.

[Fröhn]

If the data is stored in shift registers, or if a one-hot shifter is used to read out the data (as is done with the 2600's playfield) then the line buffer is not "RAM".

Ofcourse the "RAM" is shift registers since this is the easiest way to adress. Back then they had to fight for every transistor on the chip, and shift registers are the easiest implementation of linear memory access. Btw, that's also the reason why it is no RAM: It is no RANDOM access memory.

 

it is interesting that a lot of people who never touched the "other side" are defending their machine or playing down the other simply by looking at spec sheets...

Well this is mostly an "A8 disease" because A8 specs simply "shows that A8 is better":

 

- 128 vs 16 colors

- 4 vs 3 sound channels

- 1.77 vs 0.985 mhz

- display lists vs hardwired display modes

- 8 PMs vs 8 sprites

- fast disk access vs slow disk access

 

If you just looked at that, you would think: Aha, C64 sucks, A8 rules. That this list only shows a fraction of the truth is often ignored on the A8 side.

[Oswald]

Actually, that should be 96 bytes inside Antic. 48 each for the character values, and the bitmap data (remembering it gets reused in OS modes 2 and 13).

 

oh ok, lets count it again:

 

40 bytes for char pointers, 40 bytes for char gfx, 24 bytes for sprite gfx, 8 byte sprite pointers, 40x4 bits of olor ram = 40+40+24+8+20= 132 bytes for the VICII....

[Rybags]

The C-64 doesn't need to retain the bitmap info for non-sprite objects. They only ever get used once.

 

Not that it matters anyway. FFS, who actually cares how much cache, RAM, shift registers or whatever it may be resides within VIC or Antic?

And of course, not forgetting that Antic only does half the job anyway, GTIA is the one that blends in the PMGs and generates the display.

[+Philsan]

Points of view of a n00b basic Atari/C64 programmer:

- Atari Basic is one of the slowest basics, arrays are single dimensional, has graphics commands

Atari Basic: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Fortunately we have the fast and command extended Turbo-Basic XL (Atari can autoboot from disk so you can use this language without having to load it manually)

- C64 Basic is faster than Atari one (but slower then TB XL), has no graphics command

- C64 has 8 high resolution 24x21 1 color sprites or 8 medium resolution (like Atari single line resolution) 12x21 3 colors sprites (every sprite can have an independent color but the other 2 are the same for all 8 sprites)

- Atari has only 5 medium resolution 8x256 1 color sprites

- In the C64 to move a sprite you poke x and y positions, in the Atari you poke the x position but it's more complicated to insert y position

- In Atari you have to move memory pointers if you use sprites and push reset button if you don't want garbage on screen when you stop the program

- Atari has a bigger colors palette (256 instead of 16), graphics mode 9 (80x192 16 shades of one color) let you display shades of grey photos, with display list interrupts you can mix various graphics modes

- Atari has wonderful and cheap devices like SIO2PC (also usb version and Vista compatible) and SIO2SD for perfect disk drive and printer emulation

- The perfect disk drive emulation solution for C64 is the new 1541 Ultimate (187$) other cheaper solutions (I have MMC64 and 64HDD) have many limitations.

 

These are my Basic programming experiences.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Philsan

[Fröhn]

Not that it matters anyway. FFS, who actually cares how much cache, RAM, shift registers or whatever it may be resides within VIC or Antic?

Ask emkay, he started calling the internal shifter memory a "RAM"

[TMR]

- C64 has 8 high resolution 24x21 1 color sprites or 8 medium resolution (like Atari single line resolution) 24x21 3 colors sprites (every sprite can have an independent color but the other 2 are the same for all 8 sprites)

 

Slight correction, when in multicolour it's 12x21 pixels with three colours.

[+Philsan]

- C64 has 8 high resolution 24x21 1 color sprites or 8 medium resolution (like Atari single line resolution) 24x21 3 colors sprites (every sprite can have an independent color but the other 2 are the same for all 8 sprites)

 

Slight correction, when in multicolour it's 12x21 pixels with three colours.

Corrected, thanks

[Oswald]

Wow, lots of people are posting replies to this. You know I have tried out a few C64 games on an emulator and compared them to the Atari. I can say a few C64 games may look better, but some games seem to be lacking speed and animation was limited.

 

you have checked the wrong c64 games. compare these (and this is just a sub list from a bigger one):

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TEQcpLJa4PM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0BcIjsp94uM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3CeHrPzxk

http://youtube.com/watch?v=T7_idxmoJk4&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ovCZt8QUbAE

 

The C64 might have had a better sprite system than the Atari player/missile graphics, but the Atari can overcome these limitations with DLIs or what some call multiplexers. Its not too hard to get over 10 sprites, even multicolored with programming. Something else about the C64 games seem to lack the sound that the Atari has where Pokey has 4 voices vs the SID 3 voices.

 

the atari can not overcome these limitations. with some programming the c64 gets over 24 sprites each being several times bigger and multicolor with one own color and transparent. and movable in finer steps than atari ones. and you can animate and move them in Y without rewriting the whole sprite. they can be single/multicolor, have displayed under or over backgrund gfx, stretched to twice in x/y. no the atari can not do this. not even with clever programming.

 

example: