Atari v Commodore

[atariksi]

Wolfram, you are just cooked buddy.

 

What's your end game? You've annoyed the people here that matter. Nobody is going to give you any thing now. Why bother?

 

That one's just a common troll. And as long as folks feed him, he'll never go. Do what I did with the lot of them and set the forum to mask their comments.

 

I am not taking responsibility to remove his ignorance.

[ataridave]

But you'd still have to get a disk drive for the C64, at least one, I suppose.

 

?! well if you want to do something with a computer you usually need a peripheral or something.

 

Not with the 800XL, it's got a built-in cartridge port-of course, you can always add drives on if you want. Does the C64 have a built-in disk drive? And how large (inches) were the disks? I've never played one. At least the games are FINALLY getting onto the Virtual Console here in the US!

[Wolfram]

The fact that loaders vary and their software has to be first uploaded to the drive adds to overhead. And that upload has to occur using 1541 default slow protocol. Drive simulators will be faster even at same bits/second due to almost ZERO seek time. You can also bit-bang the SIO port or better use the externally clocked mode which will use POKEY HARDWARE to sample and shift in data for you at ZERO CPU time and also allow you to trigger off an VSERIN IRQ or used polled mode or cycle exact mode. As I stated I can do 357,000 bps using this mode w/o any hardware modifications to the Atari. The only thing lacking in this mode is ability to BOOT software using this mode. First you can upload a special boot block (128 bytes) and then trigger off this mode.

 

 

The fact that drive simulators vary and their host pc has to be first booted up to the drive adds to overhead. I hear you "but it has to be done only once". well, same goes to drive speeder software. Also dont forget that you're comparing here 21st century technology vs 80s. thats a "fair" comparison right? and you even want to add the software upload overhead to the c64's time for being even more "fair", but you forget about the pc preparations overhead....

 

a fair comparison is:

 

HW modded a8 drive vs software uploaded 1541 the 1541 isnt even changed in HW and still is faster. so really fair would be using a 1541 modded to send 8bits parallel...

[Wolfram]

But you'd still have to get a disk drive for the C64, at least one, I suppose.

 

?! well if you want to do something with a computer you usually need a peripheral or something.

 

Not with the 800XL, it's got a built-in cartridge port-of course, you can always add drives on if you want. Does the C64 have a built-in disk drive? And how large (inches) were the disks? I've never played one. At least the games are FINALLY getting onto the Virtual Console here in the US!

 

 

its all the same on both machines. cartridg ports,disk drives (not built in), disk sizes, etc. c64 is already on the Virtual Console.

[+wood_jl]

P.S.: And now Oswald/Wolfram wil be using Eliza`s search string on how to answer -or better- on how to attack this information... oh well, this is what makes this topic so bad, whenever you say something it will be attacked in one way or another... (its simply no discussion here, its a flamewar).

 

Oswald/Wolfram? Are these the same guys? Or just bedfellows?

 

He's much worse than Oswald. I don't remember Oswald modifying his posts (only once). He also modifies my posts to stress what I am trying to say. That's tampering. As I stated several times now, it's a waste of time trusting anything he writes. He is misinformed and biased-- anything that favors C64 is useful otherwise it's not useful in the real world (for him).

 

 

Hear, hear. Oswald, I apologize for even the suggestion of comparison to such a prick. Likewise, Frohn - I disagree on some points but you still have my respect.

 

I find it interesting how much DAMAGE blow-hards like Wolfram actually do for the Commodore community. Wolfram (I know you're reading (in chicken-shit fashion and won't address this issue).

 

I had asked a couple C64 questions, and one of the C64 users replied. Someone here suggested that "Lemon64.com" was the appropriate place for such discussion, and I'm not one to disagree with that, so off I went. Since the "1541 Ultimate" came out (sort of a fancy SIO2SD type thing for commies) that I learned of my interest was a little piqued. Being able to play some C64 games - without a piece-of-shit-1541 - kind of changes things a little.

 

So I went to Lemon64, expeciting a Borg Collective of buttholes like the Wolfram. I was pleasantly surprised to find the users are NOT AT ALL like him. They probably ran him off since he has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to contribute and no information to share with them.

 

Example? Take a look at this thread from Lemon64.com, titled "Was the Atari 800 slightly faster than the C64?"

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29790

 

Here's their equivalent of this thread, titled "Atari 8-bit or C64--which is better?"

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19421

 

Both threads are 1/100th the length of this one. Everybody has a preference, but are surprisingly moderate. I expect them to prefer C64 over there, but after dealing with the assholes who come over here to argue Commodore, you can't have anything but respect for those folks.

 

Some even expressed fondness for A8, and weren't flamed to extinction. Bottom line: They won't tolerate this prick over there, and likely ran him off - or he just has no information for anyone there (likely) and they won't listen to him. That's why he's here.

 

Wolfram - I suggest you apologize for your attempts at making all Commodore users look like pricks, and just admit that it's a personal problem you have, or you wouldn't be here. Everyone's on to you now.

[+wood_jl]

The fact that loaders vary and their software has to be first uploaded to the drive adds to overhead. And that upload has to occur using 1541 default slow protocol. Drive simulators will be faster even at same bits/second due to almost ZERO seek time. You can also bit-bang the SIO port or better use the externally clocked mode which will use POKEY HARDWARE to sample and shift in data for you at ZERO CPU time and also allow you to trigger off an VSERIN IRQ or used polled mode or cycle exact mode. As I stated I can do 357,000 bps using this mode w/o any hardware modifications to the Atari. The only thing lacking in this mode is ability to BOOT software using this mode. First you can upload a special boot block (128 bytes) and then trigger off this mode.

 

Wow. I don't exactly know what all of that means, but I like the sound of that. Sounds like an Atari equivalent to a Commie "boot loader." Sounds like some serious shit. Any comments, Wolfram? Too chicken shit, I presume? I say "Take that, bitch!" in your general direction.

[+SpiceWare]

Does the C64 have a built-in disk drive? And how large (inches) were the disks?

Not normally, though the SX-64 had a built in 1541 and 5" color display. The 128D had a built in 1571, it also increased video memory for the 80 column display from 16KB to 64KB which allowed for a 720x700 display(I frequently ran my C=128 at 640x400 to get an 80x50 character display, which was very useful when coding).

 

Commodore's drives were:

1541 - 5 1/4 @ 170 KB

1571 - 5 1/4 @ 340 KB

1581 - 3 1/2 @ 800 KB

 

The 1541 was single sided, the 1571 was double sided.

 

The 1571 supported the 128's faster transfer speed, plus it could slow down for use on a 64. One neat feature was the ability to treat each side of the floppy as a separate disk. Most people didn't need that feature, but I used it on my BBS* as it doubled the maximum directory entries from 144 for the whole floppy to 144 per side.

 

The 1581 also supported the 128's faster speed as well as the 64. One feature I used a lot was the ability to partition the floppy. Normally the max dir entries was 296, but by partitioning the floppy you could double, triple, etc. the maximum files. I think I had mine partitioned into 4 (or 5) directories, so could handle almost 1200 (or 1500) files on one floppy.

 

* each message, email, etc. was a separate file so the BBS quickly hit the maximum directory entries.

[Bryan]

Here's their equivalent of this thread, titled "Atari 8-bit or C64--which is better?"

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19421

 

Wow, I was surprised by the balanced tone of that thread whereas this thread has trended toward the ridiculous. I think page after page of how the joysticks are read really misses the point.

[Fröhn]

If you consider when 1541 came out and the hardware modded 1050s available at that time, that would be a fair comparison. You are numbers are all false because you forgot add overhead for uploading loaders of which there are hundreds of versions.

There have been hardware mods to the 1541 aswell. DolphinDOS or Prologic DOS being two of them. Those add RAM, parallel cable and sometimes a faster CPU to the drive so they can read a whole track in one revolution, buffer it and send it to C64 in minimum time. Those are even faster than Action Replay fastloaders but for most people the AR loader was good enough especially considering that you didn't have to mod your hardware for it.

 

Those multifunction carts (Final Cartridge 3, Action Replay 5 or 6) have been pretty standard for a C64 user since ~1985. Before FC3 there was other carts like "Epyx Fast Load" or "KCS Power Cart" which had slower fastloaders (6x speed instead of the 10x or 15x speeds of FC3/AR6). They also added a lot of other nice tools, for example F-key presets so you didn't have to type weird basic commands to read directory and load files together with other basic extensions, and ofcourse a machine language monitor.

 

And: No I didn't forget the overhead for uploading the code. I measured loading times from the moment I pressed the F-key to load the file until the cursor reappears. This includes the upload time of the code and also the directory scanning + file seek.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Fröhn

[frogstar_robot]

Here's their equivalent of this thread, titled "Atari 8-bit or C64--which is better?"

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19421

 

Wow, I was surprised by the balanced tone of that thread whereas this thread has trended toward the ridiculous. I think page after page of how the joysticks are read really misses the point.

 

The thread here is unfortunate in that it has Tireless Rebutters from both camps.

 

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorsh...essrebutter.htm

 

I'll thank Wood for pointing those threads out. Oswald and Wolfram did kinda have me thinking there are a disproportionate number of Commodore fanjerks. I think part of what has happened here is that the C64 was so successful that its community just plain has more of every sort of people including The Chosen Prophets Of Commodore who must preach to the A8 heathens. It was so successful that apparently there are enough of these prophets for all of the communities around vintage micros.

 

On the other hand, I find the discussion of how various bits of vintage hardware generate video fascinating and would probably be even better if not done in this Mother Of All Threads. There's a good bit of such lore amongst all the bickering. But I can't get all that worked up about joystick ports or minor I/O chip differences.......

[potatohead]

>>Finally, if significant edits are occurring to a post that is public, stating that is not a bad idea either.

 

Yeah, if people keep editing their posts (long time after), then some people's replies may have to be edited. That's the worst Chewbacca defense ever-- people go back to read it and say "What the hell is replying to something else for???"

 

I never gave him permission to stress anything I stated.

 

To be completely fair, he doesn't have to ask! If he does so, then clearly it's his burden to note that for passers by.

 

In the case of the larger font, a simple [emphasis mine] takes care of all the issues. Your words then are clearly yours. This is basic stuff. For someone showing up here looking to "defend the commodore side", it's just goofy to play those games.

[malducci]

Did c64 really take 10 minutes to read in 50k!? Man, that's pathetic. Zaxxon tape for my CoCo 2 only took about ~1 minute to load all 64k <_<

 

They only want you to compare games that have their fast loaders and not consider time to upload fast loader to the 1541.

 

So, they certain games had to load this 'fastload' routine into memory before they achieved this faster rate - every time?

[potatohead]

I've browsed Lemon64 off and on myself. Good to see confirmation that the users by and large are just interested users, talking shop.

 

And the bits of tech info that sometimes happen as a result of conversation. When I have the time, I spend it. Usually, it's worth it.

 

...sorry for the low brow humor. It's clearly beneath the usual standard at AA. (That behavior just chapped my arse)

 

Good link on that flame warrior site. I love that one! And it's so true too.

 

LOL @ frogstar! Seek and 'ye shall find. (with not all that much seeking really.)

Edited April 19, 2009 by potatohead

[Fröhn]

So, they certain games had to load this 'fastload' routine into memory before they achieved this faster rate - every time?

No. Most C64 users had a fastload or multifunction cart plugged in so you had a fastloader available when you switched the machine on. Some games also came with their own fastload routines, especially cracked versions where the crackers added a fastloader & packed the game files.

[AtariNerd]

We have a face to match the screen name, at least.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=141731

[atariksi]

Does the C64 have a built-in disk drive? And how large (inches) were the disks?

Not normally, though the SX-64 had a built in 1541 and 5" color display. The 128D had a built in 1571, it also increased video memory for the 80 column display from 16KB to 64KB which allowed for a 720x700 display(I frequently ran my C=128 at 640x400 to get an 80x50 character display, which was very useful when coding).

 

Commodore's drives were:

1541 - 5 1/4 @ 170 KB

1571 - 5 1/4 @ 340 KB

1581 - 3 1/2 @ 800 KB

 

The 1541 was single sided, the 1571 was double sided.

 

The 1571 supported the 128's faster transfer speed, plus it could slow down for use on a 64. One neat feature was the ability to treat each side of the floppy as a separate disk. Most people didn't need that feature, but I used it on my BBS* as it doubled the maximum directory entries from 144 for the whole floppy to 144 per side.

 

The 1581 also supported the 128's faster speed as well as the 64. One feature I used a lot was the ability to partition the floppy. Normally the max dir entries was 296, but by partitioning the floppy you could double, triple, etc. the maximum files. I think I had mine partitioned into 4 (or 5) directories, so could handle almost 1200 (or 1500) files on one floppy.

 

* each message, email, etc. was a separate file so the BBS quickly hit the maximum directory entries.

 

I think SpiceWare has maintained his composure from limited posts that I have seen from him. I don't get involved in emotional flaming wars since the learning experience than goes away. If someone cannot accepts facts after several tries, let him stick his head in the sand and be ignorant of reality.

[atariksi]

Here's their equivalent of this thread, titled "Atari 8-bit or C64--which is better?"

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19421

 

Wow, I was surprised by the balanced tone of that thread whereas this thread has trended toward the ridiculous. I think page after page of how the joysticks are read really misses the point.

 

It was a done topic until it was perked up again due to misinformation being spread regarding it. Way back in this thread, I did comparison of joystick i/o for PCs, C64s, Atari STs, Atari 8-bit, Amiga, etc. and the results were:

 

Atari 8-bit > Amiga > C64 > Atari ST > PCs. PCs, to be fair, don't have digital joysticks so their analog joystick timing through port 201h suffers through the waiting for one-shots to complete.

[Bryan]

Atari 8-bit > Amiga > C64 > Atari ST > PCs. PCs, to be fair, don't have digital joysticks so their analog joystick timing through port 201h suffers through the waiting for one-shots to complete.

 

How can you say the PC doesn't have digital joysticks?

 

The original PC gameport was a cheap, klunky, unreliable piece of under-engineering that stole a valuable chunk of CPU time, but they're also obsolete in this day of the $10 USB controller.

[atariksi]

Atari 8-bit > Amiga > C64 > Atari ST > PCs. PCs, to be fair, don't have digital joysticks so their analog joystick timing through port 201h suffers through the waiting for one-shots to complete.

 

How can you say the PC doesn't have digital joysticks?

 

The original PC gameport was a cheap, klunky, unreliable piece of under-engineering that stole a valuable chunk of CPU time, but they're also obsolete in this day of the $10 USB controller.

 

The standard on PC is the gameport which was later incorporated into the audio cards and/or motherboards. This gameport is accessed via port 201h and it takes approximately 1 ms to read the joystick directions. Even the latest PC I got (Dell 2.8Ghz) has the gameport. You can add USB devices for keyboards/mice/joysticks/etc. but these are non-standard and you have to access them via some API call. Even if you wrote your own low-level method of access, you will find you still need more cycles to read the joystick than Atari 8-bit!

[potatohead]

But you have the cycles!

[atariksi]

But you have the cycles!

 

I mean calculate the time from the cycles used and you will find Atari time to read joystick is still less: one LDA 54016 is 4 cycles at 558ns/cycle so total of 2 microseconds. Now remember that the I/O bus on PC is not running the processor speed so even if your PC is running at 3Ghz, the I/O cycles are occurring only at a few megahertz (tops). And for USB interface, you need many i/o cycles to do input/output transfers to devices (it uses a serial stream of data). If you were doing a buffer transfer, USB would win but joystick or 4-bit parallel data is not a serial stream of bufferred data. So for single input or inputting at arbitrary points in time or for user input at arbitrary points in time, you will see that LDA 54016 is better.

[potatohead]

True, but you still have the cycles!

 

Latency on the PC is higher, because of the software layers. I personally do not believe it is so high as to not be manageable. Additionally, there appears we are not going to avoid this. So then, we have old 8 bit computers and micros, where that just isn't a problem!

[atariksi]

>>Finally, if significant edits are occurring to a post that is public, stating that is not a bad idea either.

 

Yeah, if people keep editing their posts (long time after), then some people's replies may have to be edited. That's the worst Chewbacca defense ever-- people go back to read it and say "What the hell is replying to something else for???"

 

I never gave him permission to stress anything I stated.

 

To be completely fair, he doesn't have to ask! If he does so, then clearly it's his burden to note that for passers by.

 

In the case of the larger font, a simple [emphasis mine] takes care of all the issues. Your words then are clearly yours. This is basic stuff. For someone showing up here looking to "defend the commodore side", it's just goofy to play those games.

 

I also can't keep track of people modifying their own posts especially given how fast this thread is growing. You can't really trust what they are stating then so why bother replying. I am also opposed to someone taking my words and trying to tell me what I was trying to say.

[potatohead]

I don't like it either, but words once rendered, are just out there. Others can and will present them in whatever contrast makes sense, given the point at hand, and their particular expression on it.

 

Without this, we do not have discourse.

 

So then, the question is merely one of form. Good form makes for a tolerable discourse where the ownership can be traced back to those who uttered the words. Poor form is manipulation, and often that chain of ownership and with it trust is lost.

 

This is simply how it is.

 

I can and will call people on form. Will they stop? Up to them. However, those peers observing will then clearly see who is trying to honor the discussion and who is not and will judge accordingly. If my form is good, then I will see favorable judgment more often than not and that is good.

 

Who needs the approval of a buffoon, or those who follow one?

Edited April 19, 2009 by potatohead

[atariksi]

Here's their equivalent of this thread, titled "Atari 8-bit or C64--which is better?"

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19421

 

Wow, I was surprised by the balanced tone of that thread whereas this thread has trended toward the ridiculous. I think page after page of how the joysticks are read really misses the point.

 

The thread here is unfortunate in that it has Tireless Rebutters from both camps.

 

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorsh...essrebutter.htm

 

I'll thank Wood for pointing those threads out. Oswald and Wolfram did kinda have me thinking there are a disproportionate number of Commodore fanjerks. I think part of what has happened here is that the C64 was so successful that its community just plain has more of every sort of people including The Chosen Prophets Of Commodore who must preach to the A8 heathens. It was so successful that apparently there are enough of these prophets for all of the communities around vintage micros.

 

On the other hand, I find the discussion of how various bits of vintage hardware generate video fascinating and would probably be even better if not done in this Mother Of All Threads. There's a good bit of such lore amongst all the bickering. But I can't get all that worked up about joystick ports or minor I/O chip differences.......

 

Regarding joystick ports, it's not a minor difference if you are transferring data through it. Every cycle adds up and here we are talking a difference of more than 4X in BYTE mode. Also, there are plenty of joystick port based devices like frame grabbers, sound digitizers, etc. And there was a book written by someone "Your Atari Comes Alive!" which has a bunch of projects employing joystick port i/o circuits. I think someone also built a parallel port interface for Atari using a couple of joystick ports.