Atari v Commodore

[emkay]

That's the whole thing though, the C64 artists seem able to take a bunch of funky colours and turn them into anything I wouldn't (and I don't think they would) ever use 3 shades of blue for something, you'd use blue, light grey, black or 2 blues and a grey, something like that.

 

Which brings us back to Ste's question... where were all the A8 artists in the 1980's...? emkay's money thing is just bunk, surely there were some people around?!

 

 

LOL. The money thing is just the only pillar all the C64's prosperity got based on. Make it "bunk" results in a house of cards going down.

Again:

 

The guys who wanted to make money with the C64 jumped over to it.

The guys who "defended" the A8 were mostly "standard users" , no artists or else.

The "more professional" guys that stood in the A8 tent, were hardware related people, who created hardware stuff...

 

So, today you find many RAM expansions, Chip exchanges, computer extensions , with small driver based software, and you find many small demos with ripoffs from the C64's "art-base"... in the 80s...

 

 

One interesting point to mention: In some case you're truely right

Money is not everything. The guys at Lucas Games Division got million bucks for creating outstanding stuff. OK, in some case they made it.

 

They made a fantastic work with Roronis Rift, but they only used 4 colours for the title image...

[emkay]

It seems, even money cannot drive a brain everytime....

And if money cannot help changing interest, everything seems lost.

Just some DLIs and carmode used, the screen reminds more of the ingame scenes ...

Edited September 16, 2009 by emkay

[TMR]

There's a difference between DOING THE OPPOSITE OF THE ORIGINAL POSTER and doing things that are technical features of both machines. If someone tells you to get some milk and you go talk about cows and how they generate milk that's not as bad as force feeding him water.

 

If he's thirsty, giving him water is far better than discussing cows.

[carmel_andrews]

There's a difference between DOING THE OPPOSITE OF THE ORIGINAL POSTER and doing things that are technical features of both machines. If someone tells you to get some milk and you go talk about cows and how they generate milk that's not as bad as force feeding him water.

 

If he's thirsty, giving him water is far better than discussing cows.

 

 

 

 

 

That's got to be a world first, a cow that plays (and programs) an atari

 

Perhaps if Atari under warners were as good at marketing the A8 series to software companies as well as the general market in the UK as they were in the US market the A8 would have had better support software wise

 

I think even you have to accept that Atari didn't get that right in the UK at least till tramiel took the reins, unfortunately the battle had already been lost with the 8Bit UK software market already been divvied up between commodore and sinclair because they did sometime atari didn't and courted the software houses, so Atari did the commodore/sinclair trick Hence why the ST got the software support where the 8bit didn't

[TMR]

I think the low cost and rapidly expanding user base of the 64 really starting sucking the energy out of other platforms. There were some people doing neat things on the A8, but when the 64 took off I think it spawned a different kind of coder-gamer.

 

Really...? Well, i know it's not exactly considered a historical tome (due to largish spots of artistic license), but i've read Steven Levy's Hackers a few times and A8 people like John Harris come across in a very similar same way to a lot of the people i know or at least knew on the C64 in the 1980's.

 

LOL. The money thing is just the only pillar all the C64's prosperity got based on. Make it "bunk" results in a house of cards going down.

Again:

 

The guys who wanted to make money with the C64 jumped over to it.

 

And that list isn't going to be a particularly large subset; more people will have migrated because the hardware looked more powerful (certainly that's why i moved) and whilst there are people like Archer McLean who will have moved primarily for the money (no offence to Archer, someone brought him over to talk to me on Saturday and he's a really nice bloke) but with all the ferverent support the A8 gets now it still leaves a huge question as to why there was so little homebrew development filtering through to budget houses then.

 

The guys who "defended" the A8 were mostly "standard users" , no artists or else.

The "more professional" guys that stood in the A8 tent, were hardware related people, who created hardware stuff...

 

On the C64, a significant number of standard users had this vague want to write games as well and that's pretty much what powered the budget houses for at least half a decade if not the entire decade.

[andym00]

I doubt there are many people who have every game ever made or tried every game ever made on A8, but there aren't any games I have seen that employ GPRIOR mode 0 or GTIA modes or mixture of both. I have seen these features employed in non-game scenarios.

 

I just thought there might be some games that are universally considered in Atari land as being outstanding technical achievements, that aren't 3D

 

I mean in C64 land, stuff like Armalyte and Co. is (I guess) heralded by the gamers as being the best their is, then Mayhem in Monsterland and others.. On 7800 you've got TowerTopper/Nebulus/Castellian which looks simply adorable on a real TV (but that's probably just me thinking its one of the best (if not the best) examples of how to use artficating well).. 2600, things like Solaris, Thrust and Pitfall II spring to mind..

 

I've got to look more into these GTIA modes.. There'd be some very colourful stuff to be had with that and PRIOR=0 as well, but I get the impression they're all a bit too chunky to be useful most of the time.. But maybe that's just me.. Are there any good examples of its use in games ?

Edited September 16, 2009 by andym00

[emkay]

I f someone wanted to keep the greenish scene, because the ingame scene is using it, why not keeping it in the title and add some DLI FX...

[TMR]

That's got to be a world first, a cow that plays (and programs) an atari

 

The problem was never getting cows to program, it's more about typing on a standard keyboard with hooves.

 

Perhaps if Atari under warners were as good at marketing the A8 series to software companies as well as the general market in the UK as they were in the US market the A8 would have had better support software wise

 

i don't know if that really needed to happen for a machine to succeed; as far as i'm aware, Commodore didn't push the C64 on programmers in the UK (Jeff Minter's early NTSC machine was shipped over by HESWare for example) and Sinclair never even intended the Spectrum to be used for games so anyone developing or publishing for it hadn't had Sinclair Research knocking on their door to draw attention to the machine.

[oky2000]

I doubt there are many people who have every game ever made or tried every game ever made on A8, but there aren't any games I have seen that employ GPRIOR mode 0 or GTIA modes or mixture of both. I have seen these features employed in non-game scenarios.

 

I just thought there might be some games that are universally considered in Atari land as being outstanding technical achievements, that aren't 3D

 

I mean in C64 land, stuff like Armalyte and Co. is (I guess) heralded by the gamers as being the best their is, then Mayhem in Monsterland and others.. On 7800 you've got TowerTopper/Nebulus/Castellian which looks simply adorable on a real TV (but that's probably just me thinking its one of the best (if not the best) examples of how to use artficating well).. 2600, things like Solaris, Thrust and Pitfall II spring to mind..

 

I've got to look more into these GTIA modes.. There'd be some very colourful stuff to be had with that and PRIOR=0 as well, but I get the impression they're all a bit too chunky to be useful most of the time.. But maybe that's just me.. Are there any good examples of its use in games ?

 

Non 3D game that I think looks nice and colourful is Crownland.

[oky2000]

Which brings us back to Ste's question... where were all the A8 artists in the 1980's...? emkay's money thing is just bunk, surely there were some people around?!

 

I think the low cost and rapidly expanding user base of the 64 really starting sucking the energy out of other platforms. There were some people doing neat things on the A8, but when the 64 took off I think it spawned a different kind of coder-gamer.

 

I dunno about that, many 8bit coders were just teens in their bedrooms. And remember the A8 was around for a few years before the C64 so that same group of kids would have been playing with A8 coding too. And the C64 didn't have an easy to use BASIC or simple commands for graphics and sounds...it was almost like machine code manipulating VIC-II & SID

 

Like I say I think the problem is the A8 hardware has too many restrictions to fully utilise even the original 128 colour palette. 160x100 resolution is fine for 2600 games but in the 80s things got a bit more sophisticated.

[STE'86]

I was in computer retail during the C-64/A8 wars (yup, I'm old) - we use to throw games up on both machines on a regular basis and do comparisons (yeah, plastic zip locks rocked). I was so disappointed when later releases (particularly apple ports), were not taking advantage of the Atari. When Synapse started pumping out games on the 64, I knew it was time to worry. I will say, that I did admire this Star Raiders-like game Synapse released excusively the 64 (forgot the name now). One thing I do remember, was playing games on the 64 always felt "off" - like you were moving a joystick through mud. Not sure if this was mentioned, but wasn't "Pogo Joe" one of those great 64 games that was later ported to A8, and visually, took a nose dive?

 

My first post - so hello to all!

 

That would be "Sentinel"

 

it can be found here http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=2261

 

i remember playing a pirate copy of that on "turbotape" before i even owned a 64

 

Steve

[www.atarimania.com]

There was no "force" to pull up the machine to new standards. Expensive prices to begin with, distributors not wanting to have Atari software, crappy magazines and no real scene.

 

I'm not sure you Commodore guys understand how shitty the situation actually was for Atari users in the UK. It's not having to deal with just a smaller market share, the Atari had many other handicaps and, honestly, I feel it's completely ridiculous to assume it was just because of some hardware restrictions compared to the C64...

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

Edited September 16, 2009 by www.atarimania.com

[STE'86]

I think u have all missed one VERY big reason for the explosion of c64 stuff from "bedroom" programmers.

 

We had COMPUNET. a showcase for talent and enthusiasm like of which was not seen again till the late 90s on the internet.

 

It was cnet which kickstarted most "amateur" programmers/artists/musicians into the industry. it caused a absolute flood of new blood to the 64 starting in late 1985. pretty much ALL of the well known cnetters in all fields became producers of software on 64 and 16 bit. many are still in the industry.

 

i think it was this wave of enthusiasm which prolonged the 64 well in to the early 90s. where most other computers only had a "shelf life" of 4-5 years, the 64 had at least 8.

 

no other machine had this unique phenomenon, the British were into the scene deeply, the europeans were desperate to be in it by proxy (copy parties and swapping).

 

if your stuff wasnt on cnet u weren't "there".

 

it was like how people describe the music industry of the 60s.

 

and Emkay, we still did it for FREE for several years regardless of what u say or think.

 

Steve

[TMR]

There was no "force" to pull up the machine to new standards. Expensive prices to begin with, distributors not wanting to have Atari software, crappy magazines and no real scene.

 

I'm not sure you Commodore guys understand how shitty the situation actually was for Atari users in the UK.

 

Oh, i do... i'm in the UK and my computing history went VIC 20, Atari 800XL (from the big stock dump when the XE line was about to launch), C64 (second hand, originally owned by a small software development house); i was there man, in the trenches and i have the scars from tape-loaded budget games to prove it!! What "killed" me as an A8 programmer was that i couldn't afford the machine and a disk drive and, unlike the C64, i simply couldn't develop games on a tape-based machine - my first real game Co-Axis was almost entirely written on a slightly knackered second hand breadbin C64, with the C2N tape deck and PSU from my VIC and an Expert cartridge i was pretty much given later in development (i'd work just in memory and freeze it to tape at the end of each session).

 

It's not just having to deal with just a smaller market share, the Atari had many other handicaps and, honestly, I feel it's completely ridiculous to assume it was just because of some hardware restrictions compared to the C64...

 

Completely no, i don't think anyone said completely... but i reckon it's a fairly significant factor. Remember, the C64 coders made a point of hammering at the machine until it did all manner of things the manuals said it couldn't and that wasn't for the money (for example, PeteD there invented Variable Screen Positioning and that evolved into the VSP scroller used by games like Mayhem in Monsterland and Phobia) so why isn't there a similar "underground" thing for the A8?

[TMR]

It was cnet which kickstarted most "amateur" programmers/artists/musicians into the industry. it caused a absolute flood of new blood to the 64 starting in late 1985. pretty much ALL of the well known cnetters in all fields became producers of software on 64 and 16 bit. many are still in the industry.

 

i missed out on Compunet personally, mainly due to cost (the story of my life, really...). i saw some of what was released because a friend at school had an account and downloaded things and through him we uploaded a few odds and sods ourselves (a friend of mine wrote SID and VIC's Second... Pete chased him around at a show an' everything! =-)

 

And at the risk of sounding like a BBC disclaimer; other online services were available (and i believe the A8 could use Micronet?)... but yes, they never generated the sense of community that Compunet had.

[Lazarus]

And at the risk of sounding like a BBC disclaimer; other online services were available (and i believe the A8 could use Micronet?)... but yes, they never generated the sense of community that Compunet had.

Maybe it's because of the SID music? A lot of early demos are basically just music shows, usually with music ripped from games. Game music was probably one thing which got a lot of people into demo writing.

[PeteD]

There was no "force" to pull up the machine to new standards. Expensive prices to begin with, distributors not wanting to have Atari software, crappy magazines and no real scene.

 

I'm not sure you Commodore guys understand how shitty the situation actually was for Atari users in the UK. It's not having to deal with just a smaller market share, the Atari had many other handicaps and, honestly, I feel it's completely ridiculous to assume it was just because of some hardware restrictions compared to the C64...

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

 

The thing is, a lot of us DO understand that and DON'T just assume it's because of the hardware restrictions. As an experienced coder on many platforms I've already learned enough about the A8 to know pretty much what it's capable of and you can see from reading my posts that I know the games weren't like they were JUST due to hardware restrictions. If the hardware had been just that 10% better it would've blown the C64 away but as it was 90% of things the C64 was doing the A8 was capable of and this from an older bit of hardware.

 

What pisses me off greatly is to be lumped in with some "C64 users" some of whom come here JUST to bait you guys. Hell, I don't even own a C64, but I've got a 65xe just so I can dev some A8 software, so what does that make me?

 

I think we need caps or tshirts or something with "NOT a hater" written on them so you can spot the guys here just to give you shit or the ones here to try to have a discussion.

 

 

Pete

[emkay]

 

Maybe it's because of the SID music? A lot of early demos are basically just music shows, usually with music ripped from games. Game music was probably one thing which got a lot of people into demo writing.

 

It's obviously a big part of the C64's success. But, how should people take care of SID sound, if they didn't know the C64 at all?

Commy guys often blame big C for the "bad commercial support", but, as I wrote some posts before, I didn't know about the Atari "Computers" until I had seen one in a sale of a big store here in Germany. C64 was known easily... Speccy, Amstrad... a.s.o.... I even read about some upcoming "Enterprise Computer" just before I bought the A8.

[PeteD]

And at the risk of sounding like a BBC disclaimer; other online services were available (and i believe the A8 could use Micronet?)... but yes, they never generated the sense of community that Compunet had.

Maybe it's because of the SID music? A lot of early demos are basically just music shows, usually with music ripped from games. Game music was probably one thing which got a lot of people into demo writing.

 

I can't speak for anyone else but it wasn't my motivation, although it did end up being what I/we (Meanteam) were renowned for. To begin with it was just to get something I'd coded out to other people to see. I didn't even have a modem to start with, I'd just take stuff to our local computer club and a guy there on Cnet would have the latest demos and he'd take copies of mine. A lot of demo groups had their own musician (hence the massive amount of SID tunes in the HVSC), we didn't so relied on the latest game music for our demos. In fact we were so fast at doing a demo with the latest music that it practically wasn't worth anyone else doing one apart from some were in the same situation as us and didn't have a musician.

 

 

Pete

[www.atarimania.com]

What pisses me off greatly is to be lumped in with some "C64 users" some of whom come here JUST to bait you guys. Hell, I don't even own a C64, but I've got a 65xe just so I can dev some A8 software, so what does that make me?

 

I think we need caps or tshirts or something with "NOT a hater" written on them so you can spot the guys here just to give you shit or the ones here to try to have a discussion.

Huh? Never intented to lump either PeteD, TMR or STE'86 into that group... Just trying to explain how incredibly crappy the situation was and why things didn't take off the way they did on the C64.

 

Let's face it, there has been a lot of technical talk but all the other factors were barely mentioned

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[+Stephen]

 

*** SNIP ***

 

What pisses me off greatly is to be lumped in with some "C64 users" some of whom come here JUST to bait you guys. Hell, I don't even own a C64, but I've got a 65xe just so I can dev some A8 software, so what does that make me?

 

I think we need caps or tshirts or something with "NOT a hater" written on them so you can spot the guys here just to give you shit or the ones here to try to have a discussion.

 

Pete

That's OK Pete - I'm sure than everyone here knows you aren't here just to start a fight. I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce on the little A8. I'm envious of some of you "master" 6502 coders on this board. I am getting back into it (but more advanced than I ever did in the past) and am struggling just getting a few chained DLIs on a custom screen up and running.

 

Stephen Anderson

[TMR]

It's obviously a big part of the C64's success. But, how should people take care of SID sound, if they didn't know the C64 at all?

 

Usually hearing it at a friend's house, a shop display machine or whatever.

 

Commy guys often blame big C for the "bad commercial support", but, as I wrote some posts before, I didn't know about the Atari "Computers" until I had seen one in a sale of a big store here in Germany. C64 was known easily... Speccy, Amstrad... a.s.o.... I even read about some upcoming "Enterprise Computer" just before I bought the A8.

 

Word of mouth, that's what sold machines. Person A got a C64, A8 Spectrum or whatever, Person B saw and listened to it and said "ooh, want!" and the cycle perpetuated; Spectrums sold en masse for the UK market because they were cheap, cheerful and backups [ahem] of games on C90s were traded around the playground (i've always said that machines where the games could be pirated usually fared better than when they couldn't back then, very few people could afford a machine and more than one or two games at the same time so being able to get a tape full from a friend was a selling point).

[PeteD]

What pisses me off greatly is to be lumped in with some "C64 users" some of whom come here JUST to bait you guys. Hell, I don't even own a C64, but I've got a 65xe just so I can dev some A8 software, so what does that make me?

 

I think we need caps or tshirts or something with "NOT a hater" written on them so you can spot the guys here just to give you shit or the ones here to try to have a discussion.

Huh? Never intented to lump either PeteD, TMR or STE'86 into that group... Just trying to explain how incredibly crappy the situation was and why things didn't take off the way they did on the C64.

 

Let's face it, there has been a lot of technical talk but all the other factors were barely mentioned

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

 

No, sorry that wasn't aimed at you but a general feeling of the reception some of us get on here if we post and people work out you used to be a C64 scener or something It's like to some people anything we say is anti A8. Just thoughts pouring from my head really, sorry it was in the middle of a reply and looked aimed.

 

 

Pete

Edited September 16, 2009 by PeteD

[emkay]

Word of mouth, that's what sold machines. Person A got a C64, A8 Spectrum or whatever, Person B saw and listened to it and said "ooh, want!" and the cycle perpetuated; Spectrums sold en masse for the UK market because they were cheap, cheerful and backups [ahem] of games on C90s were traded around the playground (i've always said that machines where the games could be pirated usually fared better than when they couldn't back then, very few people could afford a machine and more than one or two games at the same time so being able to get a tape full from a friend was a selling point).

 

After the first selling by good commercials and professional software developers, words of mouth may do well. But, YES , particular pirate copies were the driver of further success of any comptersystem.

Most benefactored system was the C64....

While I bought 100s of games for the A8, everywhere I saw a C64 , you would found 1000s of copied games, but no original there. From the worker's son to the child of a dentist, they owned 1000s of pirated games.

 

I'd bet that the firstly used tapes for spreading games made it easy to copy the games (Just connect two Cassete Recorders). After a good Userbase was there, the spread via Floppy was growing.

 

That's why, later in time, even cheap games didn't bring the richness to the software developers. But, depending on the huge userbase, the progress of dying was longer than with the A8.

[Lazarus]

That's why, later in time, even cheap games didn't bring the richness to the software developers.

The kids wouldn't have bought the games anyway because they didn't have the money.