Atari v Commodore

[Alison DeMeyer]

Atari computers were always more stylish, that's all you need.

 

Why do i find the phrase "style over content" springing to mind...? =-)

Actually Content and style! Those C64's were Ugggg leeee!

 

i'm sorry, you seem to be offering subjective opinions that are outside the bounds of this discussion. Have a nice day.

 

 

Talking about yourself? Have a nicer day.

[frogstar_robot]

I'm pretty sure. If ATARI sold the AMIGA, today people would also ask "what is an AMIGA", referring to my view last week on a german GAME TV , asking "what is an 800 XL" ...

So - beeing a little twisted- I'm happy that Commodore got the rights.

 

Doubtless you're right. It would have been Tramiel Atari that owned it and Tramiel Atari couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag. Being a fan of the machine and it's tech rather than the nameplate on it, I too am glad the Amiga had the time in the sun that it did.

[Heaven/TQA]

yup. Antic is a co-processor and executing own software ("display list") with own instruction set....

 

question...is SID not a co-processor, too?

[frogstar_robot]

funny history revisionism & boasting here

 

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/mickey.html

 

No "funny revisionism" in that.

 

 

 

there is: "Jay had designed chips for the Atari Amiga which he suddenly refused to release to the company." No, he didnt design amiga for atari. neither for commodore. the chip/machine design was (almost?) ready when the atari/commodore stepped in.

 

funny atarian boasting in this link aswell:

 

"The Amiga system had always been intended to be a better version of the Atari 800 using the same multi-processor design (one processor for graphics, another for sound, etc.)."

 

no it wasnt to be a successor to the a800, neither the a800 is a multi cpu system. or if it is then about any 8bit computer is.

 

"with some kind of custom "AtariDOS" additions"

 

yeah, sure...

 

You seem to be cut from the same bolt of cloth as Rush Limbaugh. Since the facts I dredged up aren't your liking, you find a wingnut (on another board no less) and use that wingnut to tar everybody who has the temerity to like anything from Atari. A poster wrote something you didn't like and added an inaccuracy (the AtariDOS bit)....so what?

 

Miner didn't necessarily intend the Amiga as a better 800 but Warner Atari did. Nonethess, both share a design aesthetic: a fairly dumb scanline generator controlled by a processor. And yes ANTIC is a processor though a VPU rather than a CPU.

 

If I wanted to stoop to your level, I could dredge the net for C-64 wingnuts and use them to discredit all C-64 fans. Some of your posts would qualify. But then that wouldn't be fair to the more thoughtful ones like TMR.

[Fröhn]

Warner Atari was dithering on the subject so Commodore came up with the cash immediately provoking a contract dispute which had to be settled. Ironically, it was Tramiel in charge of Atari at this point that disputed that contract.

Tramiel just gambled too high.

 

And if that hadn't happened this way, I have little doubt you'd be here heaping scorn on the Amiga tech for having the wrong corporate nameplate on it.

Why "wrong"? Before Tramiel bought Atari, Atari didn't want Miners Amiga project. That's why he left and build the Amiga company. Or do you believe that only because he worked at Atari for a while they kinda own him?

[Oswald]

A poster wrote something you didn't like and added an inaccuracy (the AtariDOS bit)....so what?

 

I have mentioned and corrected it (and others). so what ?

 

Miner didn't necessarily intend the Amiga as a better 800 but Warner Atari did. Nonethess, both share a design aesthetic: a fairly dumb scanline generator controlled by a processor. And yes ANTIC is a processor though a VPU rather than a CPU.

 

Miner never intended it to be a better 800. and you correct it rightly: its a vpu rather or a co-processor rather as heaven puts it, but never a cpu.

 

If I wanted to stoop to your level, I could dredge the net for C-64 wingnuts and use them to discredit all C-64 fans. Some of your posts would qualify. But then that wouldn't be fair to the more thoughtful ones like TMR.

 

good luck finding c64 wingnuts who are trying to claim a bit of fame from a non c= system. they dont need to.

[Fröhn]

Miner didn't necessarily intend the Amiga as a better 800 but Warner Atari did. Nonethess, both share a design aesthetic: a fairly dumb scanline generator controlled by a processor. And yes ANTIC is a processor though a VPU rather than a CPU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

 

I cannot see how ANTIC fits into this definition.

[drac030]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

 

I cannot see how ANTIC fits into this definition.

 

It doesn't have to fit into the definition of a GPU, as nobody claims that ANTIC is a GPU. It is a microprocessor that controls the video shifter chip (GTIA).

 

Could you etc.

[Oswald]

yup. Antic is a co-processor and executing own software ("display list") with own instruction set....

 

question...is SID not a co-processor, too?

 

this is all grey area and subjective imho. for me anything that doesnt helps directly the work of the cpu is not a copro. antic is kindof a copro to gita tho if I look at it with atari glasses.

 

edit: it could have been both in the same chip.. that would make it a cheaper more compact design, and remove the myth of "multicpu" or "coprocessor" system.

Edited November 26, 2008 by Oswald

[Fröhn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

 

I cannot see how ANTIC fits into this definition.

 

It doesn't have to fit into the definition of a GPU, as nobody claims that ANTIC is a GPU. It is a microprocessor that controls the video shifter chip (GTIA).

And again I cannot see how ANTIC fits into this definition.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor

[Oswald]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit

 

I cannot see how ANTIC fits into this definition.

 

It doesn't have to fit into the definition of a GPU, as nobody claims that ANTIC is a GPU. It is a microprocessor that controls the video shifter chip (GTIA).

 

Could you etc.

 

its not a ucpu. as it cannot execute programs. it really just loads a list of attributes which changes its behaviour of controlling the gtia. it can not process anything that comes close to an algorithm/program.

[Crazyace]

I tend to just think of Antic/GTIA as being the display processor. I guess you could connect a GTIA directly to a 6502 in some way - but it wouldn't be that much better than the original 2600

[Garak]

The designers stated that they looked at the Atari sprite system ( and the TI 99 as well ) - as the VIC I had no sprites anything would have been an improvement.

 

I agree, they looked at a few other systems including the TI99. But not so much at Atari as I've heard some people claim (one individual comes to mind who was banned from this site for some rather nasty behavior).

 

I took it as a given that they also looked at the VIC I when designing the sequel - the seperate colour memory was already a feature for that chip.

 

Ok.

 

I really dont think you are being accurate,

 

It is you who isn't being accurate. Out of the years I've spent in Usenet Commodore newsgroups and many Commodore related web forums, you're the only one I recall to ever come up with such extreme retail stories of C64's not working and mass returns.

 

Terrible stuff, bad keyboards bad video, bad power bricks,

 

Odd, my C64 from early 1983 with it's same power supply still works. All my disk drives are original from the period they came out and I've never had to fix a damn thing. I know of people who still have their original hardware from back then with no problems either.

 

cheap faulty rf modulator switch boxes.

 

This is hilarious since those rf modulator switch boxes came from the same maker as the ones included with, say, the Atari 2600. I guess many 2600 got returned in mass droves too.

 

Just a fact! Well within the range of discussion (Atari vs Commodore).

 

Someone needs to use a dictionary more often as I see you have an odd definition of what 'fact' means.

 

Garak

[Garak]

...

 

 

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I seem to recall Al not liking mass post deletions.

 

Garak

[drac030]

its not a ucpu. as it cannot execute programs. it really just loads a list of attributes which changes its behaviour of controlling the gtia. it can not process anything that comes close to an algorithm/program.

 

And yet, the worst of all, it is not a part of C-64. Otherwise it would be a microprocessor.

 

Say anything you want, that wouldn't change the bare facts: antic is a microprocessor, it has program counter, own instruction set, fetches and processes data according to this program and independently of what 6502 is doing, can perform jumps and nops and so on. Of course, its program is primitive (it can't do arithmetic calculations or memory writes, but that's what's 6502 for), but it still is a microprocessor.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I seem to recall Al not liking mass post deletions.

I still have them all in my email notifications.

[Fröhn]

The designers stated that they looked at the Atari sprite system ( and the TI 99 as well ) - as the VIC I had no sprites anything would have been an improvement.

I agree, they looked at a few other systems including the TI99. But not so much at Atari as I've heard some people claim (one individual comes to mind who was banned from this site for some rather nasty behavior).

I'd say so too. The basics of the TI99 sprite system are much more similar to the way the VIC-II sprites work. In fact, A8 and VIC-II sprites have nearly nothing in common apart from "being sprites".

 

Terrible stuff, bad keyboards bad video, bad power bricks,

Odd, my C64 from early 1983 with it's same power supply still works. All my disk drives are original from the period they came out and I've never had to fix a damn thing.

I don't get those complaints about the keyboard. While it looks a bit weird, it is very nice to type on.

[Fröhn]

Say anything you want, that wouldn't change the bare facts: antic is a microprocessor, it has program counter, own instruction set, fetches and processes data according to this program and independently of what 6502 is doing, can perform jumps and nops and so on. Of course, its program is primitive (it can't do arithmetic calculations or memory writes, but that's what's 6502 for), but it still is a microprocessor.

Just a few corrections: What you call a "program" is a "display list" -> just a table of display zones. So since ANTIC doesn't read a program, the pointer to the list is no "program counter".

 

And a processor processes data, like "calculating something", "rendering polygons" or atleast "rendering bobs". But ANTIC doesn't process anything, it just reads a table from mem, and according to this table reads bitmap data to display it. It's only a very slight difference to hardwired display zones like on NES or VIC-II.

[Goochman]

The designers stated that they looked at the Atari sprite system ( and the TI 99 as well ) - as the VIC I had no sprites anything would have been an improvement.

 

I agree, they looked at a few other systems including the TI99. But not so much at Atari as I've heard some people claim (one individual comes to mind who was banned from this site for some rather nasty behavior).

 

I took it as a given that they also looked at the VIC I when designing the sequel - the seperate colour memory was already a feature for that chip.

 

Ok.

 

I really dont think you are being accurate,

 

It is you who isn't being accurate. Out of the years I've spent in Usenet Commodore newsgroups and many Commodore related web forums, you're the only one I recall to ever come up with such extreme retail stories of C64's not working and mass returns.

 

Terrible stuff, bad keyboards bad video, bad power bricks,

 

Odd, my C64 from early 1983 with it's same power supply still works. All my disk drives are original from the period they came out and I've never had to fix a damn thing. I know of people who still have their original hardware from back then with no problems either.

 

cheap faulty rf modulator switch boxes.

 

This is hilarious since those rf modulator switch boxes came from the same maker as the ones included with, say, the Atari 2600. I guess many 2600 got returned in mass droves too.

 

Just a fact! Well within the range of discussion (Atari vs Commodore).

 

Someone needs to use a dictionary more often as I see you have an odd definition of what 'fact' means.

 

Garak

 

Garak,

 

I worked as Sears in the US when the C64Cs (those were the white ones to look like the C128 right - memory foggy) were selling. We had a mix of brown and white ones. Anyhow - the C64s were known for low build quality and numerous returns. The C128 sold in fewer #s and I dont remember those having an issue.

 

Atari's overall were build better up until the XE/ST line of computers - thats when Jack brought his version of manufacturing to Atari.

[drac030]

Just a few corrections: What you call a "program" is a "display list" -> just a table of display zones.

 

Interestingly, C-64 people, as long as it fits their argumentation, call a display list a 6502 program, that feds VIC with data:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_list

 

Unfortunately, this is not the case here. The "display list" on Atari is a term describing a series of ANTIC op-codes, a program.

 

So since ANTIC doesn't read a program, the pointer to the list is no "program counter".

 

Unfortunately, the pointer to the display list isn't identical to the ANTIC program counter. Could you learn some basics about atari internals before starting trolling here?

 

And a processor processes data, like "calculating something", "rendering polygons" or atleast "rendering bobs".

 

I can't find "rendering bobs" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor

[peteym5]

Well we are up to 14 pages and 340+ posts. When are we going to reach 500?

 

I find these discussions interesting. I played both C64 and A8 games through emulation. Although some C64 games look great, some with NES quality, I can see where CPU speed was lacking. I cannot say either is a bad machine, there problems were more from their corporations. Both companies had great products and should have been exploited, the same way the IBM PC was. They never had much interest in creating more advance models that were backward compatible. That is not using any emulation. The 6502 could have been upgraded to 65816, Antic/GTIA, VIC-II, Vic-III all could have been updated for higher speed and include higher res options. I can go on They probably had to do it before releasing the ST and Amiga. I know Apple tried to with the II-GS, but they waited too long and the Mac was already out, and probably why it didn't go anywhere. I am looking at the reasons for the success of our IBM compatible PCs which became the standard because they made efforts so even new hardware can run software that ran on the original IBM-PC in 1981. Backward compatibility was something that was ignored.

[Crazyace]

The definition is a bit pointless really. Antic is just one part of the 8 bit Atari.

I was thinking that one of the things that's great about the C64 is the 64k memory... Imagine if it had been released as the ultimax , with all of the potential locked up by the measly 4k ram

If the 8 bits had been designed for 16k ( rather than 4k in the low end ) I doubt that some of the 'lower' res graphics modes would have been included at all in Antic as they could easily be reproduced with more complex display lists.

 

To sum up:

 

C64:

64K memory, way better sprites, 16 colours/line, 320pixel scrolling and colour

A8:

Larger colour selection, faster CPU, better scrolling of bitmaps

 

It's a wonder that anything is better on the A8 at all - given the fact there are 4 years between the machines.

 

I sometimes wonder - given that the A8 was meant to be a 2600 followup - what would have happened if it had been released as a console in 79/80.. The Intellivision would have had far more trouble going against a '5200' at launch - and maybe b/c with 2600 games would have been more important for a console release ( rather than a computer that would be 'repositioned' later

[Fröhn]

Just a few corrections: What you call a "program" is a "display list" -> just a table of display zones.

 

Interestingly, C-64 people, as long as it fits their argumentation, call a display list a 6502 program, that feds VIC with data:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_list

 

Unfortunately, this is not the case here. The "display list" on Atari is a term describing a series of ANTIC op-codes, a program.

Oh my, the worst wikipedia article I have read in a long time. Quite a lot of bullshit there.

 

So since ANTIC doesn't read a program, the pointer to the list is no "program counter".

Unfortunately, the pointer to the display list isn't identical to the ANTIC program counter. Could you learn some basics about atari internals before starting trolling here?

I know the ANTIC and GTIA pretty well.

 

And a processor processes data, like "calculating something", "rendering polygons" or atleast "rendering bobs".

I can't find "rendering bobs" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessor

"A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single integrated circuit (IC)."

 

And the "rendering bobs" was referring to GPU/VPU, not to microprocessors.

[emkay]

Let's put something "new" into the round

 

You cannot imagine a good looking 3D action game on the A8 with 8-12 fps?

Well, I can. The only rule would be to have the screendata on a cartridge...

 

wolf clones even in a8 demos are under 25fps. guess the speed on a 4x bigger screen... +add the sprite handling, AI, yaddayadda, you're at 2-4fps at best.

 

Please don't mixup the software modes that are used for most demos with the hardware mode where Antic reads every 2nd line from it's own buffer.

Softwaremodes take CPU speed... Hardwaremodes give CPU speed back, and using players overlayed by the playfield means no DMA cycles. Only some DLIs are necessary for actuating the pm graphics where needed.

Have a look at Space Harrier and how fast it runs. A Wolf 3D would need lesser DLIs ... And, yes, with double scanline modes you also can have ingame digi voices!

[Garak]

I still have them all in my email notifications.

 

 

Reminds me of that saying about what gets posted on the internet never really goes away.

 

You're getting email notifications on this thread? Wow, I imagine that's a lot of emails in a very short amount of time.

 

I worked as Sears in the US when the C64Cs (those were the white ones to look like the C128 right - memory foggy) were selling. We had a mix of brown and white ones. Anyhow - the C64s were known for low build quality and numerous returns. The C128 sold in fewer #s and I dont remember those having an issue.

 

I can see perhaps the earliest C64 versions being problematic, I'll give in to that. I assume by C64 you mean the older brown ones were more problematic?

 

Still, overall I think they were made well from what I've witnessed over the years. To be clear I'm not saying that all C64 ever shipped out were in perfect working order.

 

Thanks. Your response is more reasonable and rational then the other I was responding to.

 

Garak