Atari v Commodore

[Rockford]

Well, let's see how this game looks on C64 and Atari COMPUTERS.

 

11 - NIGHT DRIVER

 

C64

C64

C64

 

The C-64 version works in hires with the car on screen. Even though the atari version was made 26 YEARS after C64's one, it works in lo-res and cannot handle the car on screen. As a result the poor Atari version is unplayable. C64 smacks Atari again.

 

ATARI

ATARI

ATARI

 

I would like to thank frenchman for another splendid example of Atari impotence. Mate you are still the funniest person on this forum. LOL Please don't stop posting

 

 

This time you are wrong

Have you ever played both versions?

The Atari Night Drive works with pixel precision movement and have 60fps. The C64 version works with a char mode, and it feels very ugly.

 

I played the original arcade on 1980, and just the version I played doesn't count with the car printed on screen. so I think not all NIGHT DRIVER arcade came with the printed plastic. Otherwise that's only a detail that doesn't unplayable the game.

 

Yes I played both versions today. Playing on Atari is pain in the a... , you know, driving an invisible car is rather pointless LOL

 

Just like wolfenstein, you run, and you don't see your character.

Curious sense of quality you have.

If that's so, imagine playing road race or pole position without the car on screen These games would really look and play much better LOL

Edited September 10, 2009 by Rockford

[TMR]

This is 2009 no one is into the Atari vs Commodore thing at the end the Tramiel's killed both Computers Systems. That's my take on Atari vs Commodore.

 

i'd argue that the rush by their various manufacturers to get to the 16-bit market did both machines far more harm than Jack Attack ever did, certainly he was booted out of Commodore when the C64 was on a high and the only things that really killed it in the end were age and Commodore's management when bits of the company went to the wall. i'm not even sure the Tramiels made that bad a job of running Atari and i'd expect most businessmen looking at that 16-bit prize with avarice to simply leave the 8-bit line at the XL machines to bring in revenue for the 16-bit R&D rather than releasing the XE series and the 130XE in particular.

[TMR]

Just like wolfenstein, you run, and you don't see your character.

Curious sense of quality you have.

 

In Wolfenstein you don't have to worry about actually bumping into the enemies, if they're "in your face" it's pretty certain that you're in trouble regardless of their position; driving games work better if the car is visible and even Elektraglide would've been improved if you could see where you were in reference to the things you're trying to avoid.

[Bryan]

That's better.

[atarian63]

Really? more than pc's?

Don't be obtuse, you know what I meant..

Sounds like commodore bias to me. Nice try. I am sure is you add up all the pc's which are basically the same it's not even close.

[Allas]

Well, let's see how this game looks on C64 and Atari COMPUTERS.

 

11 - NIGHT DRIVER

 

C64

C64

C64

 

The C-64 version works in hires with the car on screen. Even though the atari version was made 26 YEARS after C64's one, it works in lo-res and cannot handle the car on screen. As a result the poor Atari version is unplayable. C64 smacks Atari again.

 

ATARI

ATARI

ATARI

 

I would like to thank frenchman for another splendid example of Atari impotence. Mate you are still the funniest person on this forum. LOL Please don't stop posting

 

 

This time you are wrong

Have you ever played both versions?

The Atari Night Drive works with pixel precision movement and have 60fps. The C64 version works with a char mode, and it feels very ugly.

 

I played the original arcade on 1980, and just the version I played doesn't count with the car printed on screen. so I think not all NIGHT DRIVER arcade came with the printed plastic. Otherwise that's only a detail that doesn't unplayable the game.

 

Yes I played both versions today. Playing on Atari is pain in the a... , you know, driving an invisible car is rather pointless LOL

 

Just like wolfenstein, you run, and you don't see your character.

Curious sense of quality you have.

If that's so, imagine playing road race or pole position without the car on screen These games would really look and play much better LOL

 

It's different, because on pole position you need the reference to avoid the colission with others cars and objects. On Road race the car not always is on the center of screen, so you need the car on the game.

 

Other side, the C64 version hasn't manual changes. Terribly.

[atarian63]

...

 

Depending on the colour usage Ballblazer and Dropzone could be done without transitions on the A8. Perhaps I find the time to do one of those.

 

Dropzone..interesting.....wasn't there something posted here already. A quote from Archer McLean in ZZAP! issue 12 or so? Atari XL being the Rolls Royce of 8-bit computers, C64 just a 320 BMW? Gotta dig out my ZZAP!s and I'll post that quote. I think it was in Retro Gamer too, gonna search.

Wasn't THAT a degrading statement in the forceful C64 magazine ZZAP!? (I always wondered why ZZAP! review team also always mentioned the A8 being the more powerful of the two)

 

Yeah slow bloated inefficient and overpriced....just like the Rolls Royce when what any real man want's is a small sporty car with exemplary handling LOL

 

Honestly as nice as Dropzone is on either machine it is hardly a technical tour de force compared to Something like Salamander (which with restrictive PM graphics the A8 could not replicate anywhere near as good). Keep convincing yourself that only 1st generation software appeared on the C64 and so you can have a few close calls in your isolated little delusional world

Just a poor man's excuse. We all would rather have a vette, powerful and sporty,not cheap and slow. Again, that was why people bought it at the beginning, there was little to no library and a high failure rate. As a dealer back then I can tell you it was awful. Customers would want a better pc but since it was for the kids they took the cheap path and hoped it would work out. For those who had the $$$ they bought an Apple and told themselves it was for education. That was certainly overpriced but at least had a library of titles.

To be fair by 86 it was a whole different ball game and it was common and a safe bet, quality was improving and the library was good.Not to mention every discounter like Kmart carried it. Sadly we got Jack though he had a pretty tough hand to play.

Edited September 10, 2009 by atarian63

[atarian63]

Yep, stupid software companies. Who know why it caught on, in 83 Atari had a huge installed base,c64 no much and no software. Who can explain stupidity...

Here is the explanation: It's much easier to program typical 80's jump'n'run and shoot'em up games on C64.

Could be, developement cost being what they were getting to be with more complex games, as a business it was attractive to take the cheap way out. Atari also have the problem of the crash and being associated with the gaming mess. There are 2 different era's we are talking about Atari being fairly dominant 79-83 and middling in 84-85, most of what I play is arcade games of the 78-83 era.

[Allas]

Just like wolfenstein, you run, and you don't see your character.

Curious sense of quality you have.

 

In Wolfenstein you don't have to worry about actually bumping into the enemies, if they're "in your face" it's pretty certain that you're in trouble regardless of their position; driving games work better if the car is visible and even Elektraglide would've been improved if you could see where you were in reference to the things you're trying to avoid.

 

Well, sound with logic, but really i don't need the car printed on NIGHT DRIVER and ELEKTRIGLIDE. There are several titles that don't use the car on screen too, as TEST DRIVE. IMHO that detail doesn't count, specially on a game as NIGHT DRIVER.

[atarian63]

Here we go again....shoulda, coulda, woulda....

 

And to follow this direction....

 

I would have bought A C64 ...

If it had a 2MHz CPU

If it had a good colour palette

If it had a better Keyboard

If the floppy worked at a better speed from scratch

 

The C64 would have been a good machine, but it was a cheap machine.

 

....

Well, C64 turned out to be a better computer, simple as that. You know, history never lies By the way, wasn't Atari 800XL cheaper than C64

 

 

BTW, wasn't the Spectrum cheaper than the C64

 

Yes but it is worse for 99% of all aspects of an 8bit home computer. It didn't even have a joystick port, a sound chip (16k/48k original rubber keys) or real disk drives. Also didn't have a decent TV output either. Complete fail apart from a 3.5Mhz CPU and monochrome wireframe 3D games.

Kind of like an IBM pc here. Another machine that should have failed.

 

Totally agree and actually throughout history the competition has been better than the IBM PC. Plenty of 8 bit home computers were better than the IBM 8086 range and then there was the Amiga which just shat on everything ever released from 1985-1990 regardless of price or maker. Even on a GUI point of view GEOS is better than Windows GEM on the ST better than PC GEM and Workbench better than any copy of Windows before 2000. Not bad for hardware built between 1982-1985 to stay ahead for 1 1/2 decades!

 

PC hardware today is damned sophisticated and very nice though...hence Apple came over to the dark side of Intel/Nvidia/ATI....shame most people let Microsoft pimp their hardware and waste about 25-50% of the machines raw power. There is no real OS worth a crap now for...none of them are suitably advanced compared to the multitasking wunderkind of the mid 80s ha! 25 years later I expect working artificial intelligence inside my OS not some piece of crap you have to reboot every few days just to get your USB key to be recognised or some crap

Very well said It was frustrating as a dealer to watch the industry change as it did. It was a long time before pc's became much of a one stop shop for games and work. Yep the old microsoft bloatware.. very sad indeed. They works well now but could be so much better buy hey, Google and others are trying to eat away at the MS giant. Hopefully something good will come from their eventual failure. It was an exciting time with multiple manufacturers and platforms. Competition can be good!

[atarian63]

I would have bought an A8 if it...

 

Tapes didn't take 2 hours to load

 

Don't talk nonsense crap, please. Tapes loaded, in average, for about 15 minutes or little more for bigger games. Baud rate was slow, but anyway. Then common Turbo mods came out.

 

Not here they didn't; i remember having to leave my 800XL loading Elektraglide for about half an hour give or take (usually i'd play VIC games whilst waiting for A8 ones to load!) and other games were just as sluggish. The C64 isn't exactly hyper fast off tape either, but there are easy to implement software-based turboloaders and i don't believe that was an option for the A8? Certainly i've asked about them and nobody's offered actual working code...

Herein the US I rarely saw many have cassette with Atari. I personally started with one for about a week and just spent the money of an 810 drive. I was amazed at 1541,it was so ungodly slow. Yes there were fixes but later,many 1st time users from Kmart did not know about these. I do remember manufactures putting a software fastloader on games which helped. Guess whoever did the design didn't have a crystal ball, everything was uncharted and new. Guess that's why things were very exciting back then.

[atarian63]

I would have bought an A8 if it...

 

Tapes didn't take 2 hours to load

 

Don't talk nonsense crap, please. Tapes loaded, in average, for about 15 minutes or little more for bigger games. Baud rate was slow, but anyway. Then common Turbo mods came out.

 

Not here they didn't; i remember having to leave my 800XL loading Elektraglide for about half an hour give or take (usually i'd play VIC games whilst waiting for A8 ones to load!) and other games were just as sluggish. The C64 isn't exactly hyper fast off tape either, but there are easy to implement software-based turboloaders and i don't believe that was an option for the A8? Certainly i've asked about them and nobody's offered actual working code...

 

I'm pretty sure the A8 can not have the same sort of turbo tape loader routines as the C64 after reading some articles in Atari User.

 

And for the UK it was a big point, if little Johny is getting his 800XL to play games he is not getting a disc drive, most shops wont stock disc games (lucky if any major retailers stocked any A8 games let alone discs) and certainly isn't going to be happy waiting 25-30 minutes for a 64k game to load.

 

Sure maybe some old crusty 16k-32k games load in 7-14 minutes but when Atari was pushing the XE and XL in the UK to try and increase market share, games were 64k only for XL/XE and tape games where what people would be buying.

Maybe in the UK, but here most places in the 79-83 days carried Atari on cart and disk, few places if any carried c64 for awhile after it came out and if they did it was commodore brand software on cart. It was pretty pathetic.

[atarian63]

Well, let's see how this game looks on C64 and Atari COMPUTERS.

 

11 - NIGHT DRIVER

 

C64

C64

C64

 

The C-64 version works in hires with the car on screen. Even though the atari version was made 26 YEARS after C64's one, it works in lo-res and cannot handle the car on screen. As a result the poor Atari version is unplayable. C64 smacks Atari again.

 

ATARI

ATARI

ATARI

 

I would like to thank frenchman for another splendid example of Atari impotence. Mate you are still the funniest person on this forum. LOL Please don't stop posting

Wow! I like the Atari version better, has the moving backgrounds.

[Lazarus]

Here is the explanation: It's much easier to program typical 80's jump'n'run and shoot'em up games on C64.

Could be, developement cost being what they were getting to be with more complex games, as a business it was attractive to take the cheap way out.

In the beginning C64 would simply get A8 or Apple2 ports. This was pretty easy to do and would have been stupid not to do it since such a port usually can be done in a minimum time. However if you write a C64 specific game it gets very hard to port it to A8, so in the time you can do 2-3 new C64 games you could maybe do one A8 port. Especially when the quickly growing C64 games library caused more and more people to buy C64 it would have been stupid to waste your resources on one game on Atari if you can get 2-3 on C64 for the same price.

[Gury]

I would have bought an A8 if it...

 

Tapes didn't take 2 hours to load

 

Don't talk nonsense crap, please. Tapes loaded, in average, for about 15 minutes or little more for bigger games. Baud rate was slow, but anyway. Then common Turbo mods came out.

 

Not here they didn't; i remember having to leave my 800XL loading Elektraglide for about half an hour give or take (usually i'd play VIC games whilst waiting for A8 ones to load!) and other games were just as sluggish. The C64 isn't exactly hyper fast off tape either, but there are easy to implement software-based turboloaders and i don't believe that was an option for the A8? Certainly i've asked about them and nobody's offered actual working code...

 

I'm pretty sure the A8 can not have the same sort of turbo tape loader routines as the C64 after reading some articles in Atari User.

 

And for the UK it was a big point, if little Johny is getting his 800XL to play games he is not getting a disc drive, most shops wont stock disc games (lucky if any major retailers stocked any A8 games let alone discs) and certainly isn't going to be happy waiting 25-30 minutes for a 64k game to load.

 

Sure maybe some old crusty 16k-32k games load in 7-14 minutes but when Atari was pushing the XE and XL in the UK to try and increase market share, games were 64k only for XL/XE and tape games where what people would be buying.

Maybe in the UK, but here most places in the 79-83 days carried Atari on cart and disk, few places if any carried c64 for awhile after it came out and if they did it was commodore brand software on cart. It was pretty pathetic.

True, thanks for reminding me, I forgot to mention US market. There cassette players became rare in later years of 8-bit Atari lifespan and stock 1050 disk drives took over, with XL line of Atari computers emerging.

[atarian63]

Here is the explanation: It's much easier to program typical 80's jump'n'run and shoot'em up games on C64.

Could be, developement cost being what they were getting to be with more complex games, as a business it was attractive to take the cheap way out.

In the beginning C64 would simply get A8 or Apple2 ports. This was pretty easy to do and would have been stupid not to do it since such a port usually can be done in a minimum time. However if you write a C64 specific game it gets very hard to port it to A8, so in the time you can do 2-3 new C64 games you could maybe do one A8 port. Especially when the quickly growing C64 games library caused more and more people to buy C64 it would have been stupid to waste your resources on one game on Atari if you can get 2-3 on C64 for the same price.

makes sense

[frenchman]

 

Anyway frenchman, it was a joke of the year ROTFL

 

 

Rocky's wrong AGAIN and AGAIN, posting without thinking (How do you do it?), you were asking about Atari rip-offs which I provided, nothing more. Can't you even get that right if you have to think so hard to come up with a (as usual) totally nonsense answer? :D

 

Here's a nice C64 screen shot for you:

 

 

And you know what's coming:

 

BTW, aren't you dead yet?

Edited September 10, 2009 by frenchman

[Tezz]

Well, it's said that aparently most UK Atari owners back then were supposedly all cassette based however on the contrary in my experience, back here in my school days ALL of the A8 owners had 1050's. The vast majority of kids were c64 owners though

Edited September 10, 2009 by Tezz

[frenchman]

 

Yeah slow bloated inefficient and overpriced....just like the Rolls Royce when what any real man want's is a small sporty car with exemplary handling LOL

 

Honestly as nice as Dropzone is on either machine it is hardly a technical tour de force compared to Something like Salamander (which with restrictive PM graphics the A8 could not replicate anywhere near as good). Keep convincing yourself that only 1st generation software appeared on the C64 and so you can have a few close calls in your isolated little delusional world

 

Sorry I got it wrong (once in a while I do, not very often like our companion Rocky who always gets it wrong, but sometimes).

Archer MacLean:

The Atari is the PORSCHE of home computers (ZZAP! C64 magazine):

Edited September 10, 2009 by frenchman

[Irgendwer]

Well, let's see how it works. Atarians rip off an 20+ years old C64 picture, then fix it a little bit with a modern PC tool and TA-DA... what an achivement :D

...

 

It's not our fault that the C64 is so dull that a PC program which helps to keep up with the complexity of the machine does make no sense...

 

That is part of the fun when working with the A8s today!

 

BTW:

B.zip

[Rockford]

Well, let's see how this game looks on C64 and Atari COMPUTERS.

 

11 - NIGHT DRIVER

 

C64

C64

C64

 

The C-64 version works in hires with the car on screen. Even though the atari version was made 26 YEARS after C64's one, it works in lo-res and cannot handle the car on screen. As a result the poor Atari version is unplayable. C64 smacks Atari again.

 

ATARI

ATARI

ATARI

 

I would like to thank frenchman for another splendid example of Atari impotence. Mate you are still the funniest person on this forum. LOL Please don't stop posting

 

 

This time you are wrong

Have you ever played both versions?

The Atari Night Drive works with pixel precision movement and have 60fps. The C64 version works with a char mode, and it feels very ugly.

 

I played the original arcade on 1980, and just the version I played doesn't count with the car printed on screen. so I think not all NIGHT DRIVER arcade came with the printed plastic. Otherwise that's only a detail that doesn't unplayable the game.

 

Yes I played both versions today. Playing on Atari is pain in the a... , you know, driving an invisible car is rather pointless LOL

 

Just like wolfenstein, you run, and you don't see your character.

Curious sense of quality you have.

If that's so, imagine playing road race or pole position without the car on screen These games would really look and play much better LOL

 

It's different, because on pole position you need the reference to avoid the colission with others cars and objects. On Road race the car not always is on the center of screen, so you need the car on the game.

 

OK, if you want to convice anybody in the world that having less graphics in lower resolution on screen is better than having more in hi-res, fine. Any reasonably thinking person would tell you that's silly like hell This car was put there for a reason, because it looks and plays much better with it. Even atari 2600 version has it, arcade has it too(better plastic than none LOL ). Interestingly, only the poor A8 version is empty. C64 was the first 8bit computer that had it, A8 version arrived 26 years (YES 26 !!!) later, NEVERTHELESS it's inferior and plays like s..t. Oh, C64 version was ripped from A8 version ..... sure, what a brilliant logic. MEGA LOL

[PeteD]

 

Yeah slow bloated inefficient and overpriced....just like the Rolls Royce when what any real man want's is a small sporty car with exemplary handling LOL

 

Honestly as nice as Dropzone is on either machine it is hardly a technical tour de force compared to Something like Salamander (which with restrictive PM graphics the A8 could not replicate anywhere near as good). Keep convincing yourself that only 1st generation software appeared on the C64 and so you can have a few close calls in your isolated little delusional world

 

Sorry I got it wrong (once in a while I do, not very often like our companion Rocky who always gets it wrong, but sometimes).

Archer MacLean:

The Atari is the PORSCHE of home computers (ZZAP! C64 magazine):

 

 

Not anyone elses but Archers fault if he had no clue how to code properly on C64 Same as I keep saying about a lot of games being ported to A8 from C64 though. Doesn't mean one is a worse machine just the coder didn't know how to handle it.

 

 

Pete

[STE'86]

Well, let's see how it works. Atarians rip off an 20+ years old C64 picture, then fix it a little bit with a modern PC tool and TA-DA... what an achivement :D

...

 

It's not our fault that the C64 is so dull that a PC program which helps to keep up with the complexity of the machine does make no sense...

 

That is part of the fun when working with the A8s today!

 

BTW:

 

 

ohhhh the movie posters, greyscaled then derezzed with mosiac on photoshop then maybe overlayed on my pics. i truly am not worthy of your ability. LOL

 

actually being as how they are only 4 colours u would have maybe thought that some atari artist would have done something as good in the last 30 fcking years wouldnt you really?

Edited September 10, 2009 by STE'86

[frenchman]

I'm only gonna talk like Rocky now:

 

LOL MEGA LOL, :D :D :D :D MEGA LOL :D :D LOL :D :D MEGA LOL :D :D LOL MEGA BRILL LOL :D :D LOL LOL LOL :D :D :D LOL BRILL OVER MEGA LOL :D :D LOL LOL MEGA :D :D :D :D

 

and somebody here was saying C64ers were the COOL ONES at school? Now that, my friends, truly is the biggest joke of the year.

Edited September 10, 2009 by frenchman

[Allas]

OK, if you want to convice anybody in the world that having less graphics in lower resolution on screen is better than having more in hi-res, fine. Any reasonably thinking person would tell you that's silly like hell This car was put there for a reason, because it looks and plays much better with it. Even atari 2600 version has it, arcade has it too(better plastic than none LOL ). Interestingly, only the poor A8 version is empty. C64 was the first 8bit computer that had it, A8 version arrived 26 years (YES 26 !!!) later, NEVERTHELESS it's inferior and plays like s..t. Oh, C64 version was ripped from A8 version ..... sure, what a brilliant logic. MEGA LOL

 

Well, until now all your comparison posts C64 vs Atari were right.

I know you are not a programmer, but this post about NIGHT DRIVER, give you low credit on technical and user criteria. At the eyes of anyone (a8 or C64 users), the A8 version is by far the best. Maybe you forgot to play the real arcade on MAME emulator.