Atari v Commodore

[PeteD]

Rockford....any other hobbies?

Yeaaah, you know...space flights, liver surgeries, nuclear physics and so on

Hmmmm, interesting. Can you tell me more about the difference between the open and closed superstring spectrum?

 

Is that one of those Russian spectrum clones?, like the Pentagon? I think they had more ram and stuff

 

 

Pete

[TMR]

I'd be happy to help write a new tracker with you guys help when I'm done with Exploding Fist. I think it also needs a better pokey emulation though? so maybe a native tracker?

 

A certain member of Cosine's is probably going to murder me (he's been talking about an editor like that for the C64 for ages! =-) but how about a hybrid? The editor runs on a PC with an A8 sat beside it, playing the actual notes which are shipped over in realtime - y'get the best of both worlds, a fast environment for the editor and true POKEY sound.

[Rockford]

Rockford....any other hobbies?

Yeaaah, you know...space flights, liver surgeries, nuclear physics and so on

Hmmmm, interesting. Can you tell me more about the difference between the open and closed superstring spectrum?

Sure, open isn't closed and closed isn't open

[analmux]

Rockford....any other hobbies?

Yeaaah, you know...space flights, liver surgeries, nuclear physics and so on

Hmmmm, interesting. Can you tell me more about the difference between the open and closed superstring spectrum?

Sure, open isn't closed and closed isn't open

WRONG!!! ahahhahhhhahhhhhaaaaaaa

[Rockford]

Liver surgeries?! no waaaay! I could've done with you a few years ago during my "drinking" phase. lol

 

 

Pete

Few years ago I was a trainee, so you couldn't have survived

[PeteD]

I'd be happy to help write a new tracker with you guys help when I'm done with Exploding Fist. I think it also needs a better pokey emulation though? so maybe a native tracker?

 

A certain member of Cosine's is probably going to murder me (he's been talking about an editor like that for the C64 for ages! =-) but how about a hybrid? The editor runs on a PC with an A8 sat beside it, playing the actual notes which are shipped over in realtime - y'get the best of both worlds, a fast environment for the editor and true POKEY sound.

 

Tiz a jolly good idea. Limited to people with PC-A8 connectivity but I think anyone serious about pokey composing would either have that or be willing to shell out for it. Or maybe someone wants to build HardPOKEY? A pokey on a board with a usb connection that'd be cool

 

 

Pete

[Rockford]

:love: :love: WHO WILL GET POST NUMBER 10000!!!!! :love: :love:

 

Todays post stats say the front runners (in order of most likely based on post rate) are emkay, atariski, TMR, Rockford, me

 

 

Pete

It will be me posting 99th game, that looks and plays better on C64

[TMR]

how about a hybrid? The editor runs on a PC with an A8 sat beside it, playing the actual notes which are shipped over in realtime - y'get the best of both worlds, a fast environment for the editor and true POKEY sound.

 

Tiz a jolly good idea. Limited to people with PC-A8 connectivity but I think anyone serious about pokey composing would either have that or be willing to shell out for it. Or maybe someone wants to build HardPOKEY? A pokey on a board with a usb connection that'd be cool

 

That gives me another thought - GoatTracker (which has HardSID support, that's where this train of thought departed from) comes in different flavours and your new POKEY editor could do the same; one using software emulation, another with data transfer capability.

[PeteD]

how about a hybrid? The editor runs on a PC with an A8 sat beside it, playing the actual notes which are shipped over in realtime - y'get the best of both worlds, a fast environment for the editor and true POKEY sound.

 

Tiz a jolly good idea. Limited to people with PC-A8 connectivity but I think anyone serious about pokey composing would either have that or be willing to shell out for it. Or maybe someone wants to build HardPOKEY? A pokey on a board with a usb connection that'd be cool

 

That gives me another thought - GoatTracker (which has HardSID support, that's where this train of thought departed from) comes in different flavours and your new POKEY editor could do the same; one using software emulation, another with data transfer capability.

 

Just what I was thinking

 

Seems to be a fair few pokey hardware projects around (including one I found while searching pokey breadboard, http://www.retroclinic.com/leopardcats/bbpokey/breadboard_pokey_project.htm it's INSANE!) but this http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=midibox_pokey looks useful. Diagram for wiring a pokey up via lpt.

 

 

Pete

[frenchman]

 

PAL is already superior to NTSC

 

 

Don't think the Japanese would agree.

[+MrFish]

how about a hybrid? The editor runs on a PC with an A8 sat beside it, playing the actual notes which are shipped over in realtime - y'get the best of both worlds, a fast environment for the editor and true POKEY sound.

 

Tiz a jolly good idea. Limited to people with PC-A8 connectivity but I think anyone serious about pokey composing would either have that or be willing to shell out for it. Or maybe someone wants to build HardPOKEY? A pokey on a board with a usb connection that'd be cool

 

That gives me another thought - GoatTracker (which has HardSID support, that's where this train of thought departed from) comes in different flavours and your new POKEY editor could do the same; one using software emulation, another with data transfer capability.

 

Just what I was thinking

 

Seems to be a fair few pokey hardware projects around (including one I found while searching pokey breadboard, http://www.retroclin...key_project.htm it's INSANE!) but this http://www.midibox.o...d=midibox_pokey looks useful. Diagram for wiring a pokey up via lpt.

Here's another one that I just read about the other day which attaches to the printer port: Hill Software - Atari Projects (scroll down to the "Atari 8-bit Computers" section).

Edited October 4, 2009 by MrFish

[potatohead]

You won't hear me arguing that point at all.

 

All I pointed out was:

 

1. That game does not utilize the hardware features of any machine very well at all.

 

2. Showing the monochrome output is not really representative of what the game looks like.

 

That's it.

 

A quick read up thread sees me clearly highlight how PAL ended up being the better overall signal standard. The artifacting that occurs in PAL is different from NTSC, and the result of that is generally more appealing to me.

 

I made a secondary point about "true colors".

 

1. I laughed at the statement.

 

2. Some computers use artifacting as their means of color generation.

 

There is the implied point of:

 

1. When you connect a display device, it's capabilities impact what is seen.

 

2. What is seen is "true color".

 

Finally in the context of the thread:

 

1. I prefer Atari computers and have stated why.

 

2. Where one machine is "better" than the other, there is no realistic discussion. We all like what we like, and it's that simple.

 

(subsequent comments on this ignored)

[potatohead]

For the record, double posts just suck.

Edited October 5, 2009 by potatohead

[PeteD]

 

Here's another one that I just read about the other day which attaches to the printer port: Hill Software - Atari Projects (scroll down to the "Atari 8-bit Computers" section).

 

I was just there and started to read the page when I came back here instead, saw your post, clicked it, got confused, realised I had 2 of the same page open. Must be bed time

 

 

Pete

[atarian63]

next post

Edited October 5, 2009 by atarian63

[atarian63]

 

Actually Pete, though you might like to diminish just "selling" or "using" that's mainly just crap.

I have attended more developement conferences that I care to go over. Manufacturer demos and have flown around the country for various forums and symposiums in the industry over the years. Met Tramiel in both commodore and Atari iterations. EA,Activison,etc, met with them all back in the hey day.Was a chain store level buyer at CES during the 80's and early 90's and was wined and dined by all these companies. So to try to diminish my view as you have written a couple lines of code here and there is just silly.

Technical specs are very well known over the years and experience shows when "poor programming" takes place.

No one including most users back then were blind(though I think some coders thought so). Kind of like shovelware today,there were many titles I would refuse to recommend or even carry to customers or to the store locations we had.

In other words we reviewed what we bought and sold, in order to assist customers and store managers.

We listened to customers as well including user groups of the day for input on the quality of items.

I'll stand by may statements here in this thread.

Time and experience,were you in the trenches selling and dealing with this stuff?

Games are written for the players and who would know better than the supplier back in the day? Unlike now there were few sources that were up to the minute.

Not to mention we ran 2 service departments and board level hardware work was our specialty.

 

Sorry, missed this one.

 

Don't take it so personally. I'm in no way trying to diminish your roles in the industry, simply pointing out that if anyone has the right to judge other peoples code to the level where emkay says something is technically much better, it's another coder. I also don't see what me being in the trenches selling games would have to do with it either. I'm not talking someone's ability to judge quality or playability, or trying to do the best by their customers, that's your reading of it. This stuff started over emkays post and that's all I'm replying to apart from saying as a coder I know if something is "technically" far better or not.

 

*edit*

I also somehow missed your comment about me writing a couple of lines of code here and there. Well, another person who will make comments like that while having no clue what the person they're talking about has done. Certainly written more than "a couple" lines of code, or "a couple" games. What else can be expected on this forum though? You post something, it gets someones back up and this crap starts.

 

 

 

Pete

ok! Truce!

[atariksi]

...

but why would it want to be a replica of that?

...

 

Maybe you like a replica of this:

 

That is horrible quality. Are you sure you have not seen what the C64 has to offer? I am sure if you did, you would not post a picture like this. The below is from my MUSC converter (and bear in mind that this only has sprite underlay) FLI in combination with this would look FAR better.

 

It looks terrible and can't be compared to REAL colors. This is a spatial dither job (worse than temporal dither) and if you see it the way it is meant to be seen (full screen on TV), you will see those dithered colors. Now if you shrink it and see it as a small window, you don't see the ugly dither patterns. I would think the one posted in post #9499 looks better and that can also be enhanced further. The point I am making is you can't real colors with dithered colors.

 

Wrong. Display on TV set and the colors will mix. It would actually be vice versa on TV set (Will look better) I would prefer dithering over blocky pixels anyday. I have yet to see any atari gfx mode look better than what is offered on the c64. The recent example pics have nice color selection of course, but so darn blocky. C64 images win hands down. But not to say that Atari does not have potential. I am sure its capable of something but I have not seen it yet

 

You are wrong and just speculating like a C64 fanboy. If colors will mix, then show the color mixed version why are you posting an image that's non-representative of the actual image. You are just blurting out C64 wins hands down because you are PASSING JUDGEMENT according to what you think it should be like. You don't even understand that having REAL colors is better than spatially dithered colors. Perhaps, you need to pick up some books on image processing rather than speculate. You have shown images when their representative on A8 don't exist and you haven't even shown the exact image. People have to guess whether it's PAL mixing, artifacting, or emulator snap-shot. Stop the rubbish "I am sure it's capable of something." You are misjudging the paintings-- they look more beautiful with the bigger palette. Of course, you have not seen better results on A8 because you are NOT looking at the painting but complaining about whether it's hi-res or not and discarding the color content. By the way, your images are spatially dithered on both axes-- don't you think that is self-contradictory to your remark that you are looking only for hi-res images? You are like some clown who claims he's digging for gold, but already has made up his mind that it must be in the Sahara desert.

 

I had previously posted both the non pal blending picture and pal blending picture. Overall Lets just say that the quality is determined by the final outcome. Would everyone agree? All i have seen from this entire forum are Atari 800 images that look total crap.

...

Your full of crap that's all. Your views of the same images is different from many others. All those high color images are better than crappy c64 palettized and dithered crap that you posted. Your taste is due to your conditioned state of C64 palette. Get a broader perspective and we can talk more seriously.

 

Show me an image on Atari 800 that betters the images I have posted?

 

...

No, you are comparing Apples and Oranges. Many images posted on this forum are better than those same on C64. I can say show me those same images as better on C64.

 

I would love to see Atari 800 display images at the same quality.

No, you don't. You are stuck in your fantasy land of C64 palette.

 

For additional evidence I have even posted the executable (and that was for just the standard Mucsu mode) View that on a C64 and quality looks even more superior to the screenshots posted!

The one you posted is spatially dithered and you are claiming it's different on real machine. You stress hi-res yet do spatial dithering.

 

Real colors are better than spatially dithered colors but Only if you have the resolution and able to display a considerable amount of colors in a given area.

No, REAL colors are ALWAYS better. Spatial dithering reduces resolution and cannot be compared with real colors as you did by calling the A8 picture in post #9499 crap.

 

I would rather prefer a 320x200 image in 16 colors than a blocky washed out 80/160x

No, I just showed an image which is BETTER at half res with more colors than at 16 colors. Get a life if you can't see that. I don't care what you prefer but what is real. And you once again self-contradicted this statement by later stating only the outcome matters not the resolution or colors. Make up your mind. Your duplicitous stands prevents you from making any serious statements.

 

And ofcourse looking at all the screenshots I want you to post an image which looks as good or better then the c64 offering. At the end, the final outcome is how the image looks regardless of how many colors a machine may have.

As I said a few times now, all the gray scale imagery from A8 look like crap on C64-- what more evidence do you need? And I gave an algorithm for getting high color images but I am not slave to fanboys to code for them. I only write code that I have uses for in my projects. Yes, final outcome is what matters regardless of how many colors or what resolution the machine may have. Don't just talk about colors.

 

Secondly I have looked at the image. I dont care whether it contains more colors, the final outcome like i said is the Final result of how it looks like on the machine regardless of what gfx mode its in. Does not matter whether its lores/hires etc.

Then stop the bullcrap of labeling them crap when they look better on A8 than on C64.

 

Rather than say what is better or not, why dont you do something productive and code something that shows what the Atari is capable of.

I did. Another blurting out of mental speculations like before.

 

Unlike you, I can code my own converters/demos and other applications. I am sure if you had the necessary knowledge you would be able to back up your claim instead of just ranting on without evidence. A challenge for you. Show me an image which beats the images i posted with atari800xl executable. We are waiting..

Major speculation. Finding fault with others without even knowing them. As I said I don't do things for fanboys who follow self-contradictory views and flip views whenever they feel like. Your answers are incoherent to say the least.

 

Yes, I have repeated myself a few times here. but thats just to drill it into your head

Liar. This is the FIRST time you are demanding it from me and I have no obligation to deal with your bullcrap. I am glad you agree that it doesn't matter number of colors or resolution, it's the outcome. And all those images posted by others of A8 and gray-scale ones posted by me look like CRAP on C64. And your images are spatially dithered unless I IMAGINE blending in my head. That's inferior to REAL colors. And even if you assume some blending

 

You should drill in your head first that gray-scale (or any shaded) imagery looks like CRAP on your machine and first go find out about someone before showing off your egos of what you have coded.

[invisible kid]

O.k. I got a computer programming degree from Rockford University. Now since I'm a 'coder' my opinions are automagically correct, and you Atari enthusiasts with your paultry 35 years of experience mean nothing! You see, you are not a 'coder' and therefore your opinions mean nothing!

 

Now let me explain how Commodore 64s were made. I worked on the assembly line after my parents realized I shat in 6502 machine code. Now this is absolutely the hardest processor to code for, in the past, present, and future, and this is why we can never be wrong. It takes nothing less than a wunderkind to figure out this cryptic set of instructions. Now when I worked on the Commodore 64 assembly line you only had one task, you pull the lever at a certain time and a whole bunch of molten plastic drops into a mold and goes glorp!. The commodore 64 in fact has no electronics inside it, it is just molded plastic and bees, that's right bees. You can take that to the Rockford University bank. I suggested they make a key chain out of this instead, but this is what they went for. The sid is actualy just a bunch of pissed-off bees. Then when it came time to design the disk drive system, I said to them, sure you could produce a quick, responsive, usefull peripheral unit, but why not instead include a whole microprocessor, and make the drive a kind of useless Frankenstein computer unto itself! Obviously, they went for it, but on one condition, it cannot fully boot games, and you need a third party after-market product to make it usable. Then we produced for them what I like to call the peekpoke language. They decided to call it BASIC. Also when you move the joystick it acts like the keyboard, that was my idea as well.

 

-Rockford University graduate

[potatohead]

 

LMFAO!

 

Nice one.

[miker]

OK, primavera speaking...

 

@Rockford:

 

All of these game comparisons in some last 100 pages are very smart, indeed.

 

Yeah, and they have probably one thing in common - you didn't code a byte in tham, right?

 

So, maybe show us some of YOUR achievements on this (as you said) superior comp.

Leading a University (yeah, invisible kid ) is great honour, in think.

But maybe some YOUR examples for that poor, dreaming and sputtering Atari-scene. Go on!

 

 

 

(just checked - there IS a guy called Rockford on Commodore scene, let's see it is him)

[atarian63]

O.k. I got a computer programming degree from Rockford University. Now since I'm a 'coder' my opinions are automagically correct, and you Atari enthusiasts with your paultry 35 years of experience mean nothing! You see, you are not a 'coder' and therefore your opinions mean nothing!

 

Now let me explain how Commodore 64s were made. I worked on the assembly line after my parents realized I shat in 6502 machine code. Now this is absolutely the hardest processor to code for, in the past, present, and future, and this is why we can never be wrong. It takes nothing less than a wunderkind to figure out this cryptic set of instructions. Now when I worked on the Commodore 64 assembly line you only had one task, you pull the lever at a certain time and a whole bunch of molten plastic drops into a mold and goes glorp!. The commodore 64 in fact has no electronics inside it, it is just molded plastic and bees, that's right bees. You can take that to the Rockford University bank. I suggested they make a key chain out of this instead, but this is what they went for. The sid is actualy just a bunch of pissed-off bees. Then when it came time to design the disk drive system, I said to them, sure you could produce a quick, responsive, usefull peripheral unit, but why not instead include a whole microprocessor, and make the drive a kind of useless Frankenstein computer unto itself! Obviously, they went for it, but on one condition, it cannot fully boot games, and you need a third party after-market product to make it usable. Then we produced for them what I like to call the peekpoke language. They decided to call it BASIC. Also when you move the joystick it acts like the keyboard, that was my idea as well.

 

-Rockford University graduate

So damn funny! Especially "the sid is actually just a bunch of pissed off bees" LMFAO! It does sound like that you know!

[Heaven/TQA]

the tracker TMR and Pete are talking about might be interesting. Any chance to have poke2usb cart? with stereo chinch to connect to amps?

 

that would be intersting?

 

I guess a simple sio2pc will not work... or like midimaze? upload the data to A8 waiting for the data?

[+wood_jl]

@ Rockford:

 

I really like the comparisons; I think you're doing well at posting them, and when I get a lil' more time I am going to fire up all of those games on both systems and do make some comparisons. That's pure fun, and it's the reason I got a C64 (well, 1541U actually) after all these years. But I suggest you let the screenshots (etc) speak for themselves; is it necessary to insult Atari lovers? Why not have a "we report....you decide" take on these things? Of course the better game (in any comparison) could only prove superiority for one machine (or the other) if we could be certain the programmers exploited the hardware to the theoretical maximum on both platforms, and THEN one of them won. Of course we'll never know that. But we don't need to - to understand which version of the game is better....for whatever unknown reason...superior hardware or inferior programming....or some indeterminate mix. But indeterminate is the key word.

 

Who cares why? I'd like to play the better version, regardless of which hardware. And of course, as screenshots are not representative of actual fluid gameplay, they don't tell the whole story. That's where the observations of gamers come in. If the graphics AND gameplay are better on one system, then I think we have a winner - for THAT game, certainly not all.

 

Keep in mind whatever you say, you're never going to convice people on Atari Age to throw away their Ataris. You may pique interest in C64 however - if that is your ultimate goal (if not, then what is it?) - but likely NOT through adverseness.

Edited October 5, 2009 by wood_jl

[emkay]

the tracker TMR and Pete are talking about might be interesting. Any chance to have poke2usb cart? with stereo chinch to connect to amps?

 

that would be intersting?

 

I guess a simple sio2pc will not work... or like midimaze? upload the data to A8 waiting for the data?

 

In theory it is almost there. RMT and the native RMT player. Changes could get actuated through SIO transfer.

In an instrument test mode, you could do the transfer and the playing of the instrument in a loop.

Changes of patterns could be checked between every pattern. And, if a song should be played completely, you have the "SIO"-less mode.

It may not be the best solution, but it would be better than nothing.

[analmux]

I'd be happy to help write a new tracker with you guys help when I'm done with Exploding Fist. I think it also needs a better pokey emulation though? so maybe a native tracker?

 

A certain member of Cosine's is probably going to murder me (he's been talking about an editor like that for the C64 for ages! =-) but how about a hybrid? The editor runs on a PC with an A8 sat beside it, playing the actual notes which are shipped over in realtime - y'get the best of both worlds, a fast environment for the editor and true POKEY sound.

 

Tiz a jolly good idea. Limited to people with PC-A8 connectivity but I think anyone serious about pokey composing would either have that or be willing to shell out for it. Or maybe someone wants to build HardPOKEY? A pokey on a board with a usb connection that'd be cool

 

 

Pete

Just my thoughts on this: Maybe a good solution would be like the SIO2PC method. Use real atari to play completed tunes for testing. Only data transfer from PC to A8 with a new tune, or new changes to a tune. Directly 'speaking' to Pokey wouldn't be an option:

 

-The most advanced Pokey stuff relies on cycle-exact operations to initialize a new sound with 100% determinacy.

-Anyway, for SIO, the Pokey itself is used for a bit channel. Pokey deals with the 'baud rate', by using its timer regs.

 

So, I think it would be a pseudo-hybrid anyway....i.e. do PC program with Pokey emulation to do test tracks. Then when you think "I want to hear this on the real machine", just push a key, and a testfile will be sent to the Atari.

 

RMT indeed already does a good job (however, doesn't support polycounter reset/offset, filter (pulsewave) control, 2-tone filter etc.), and testing comes down to exporting .xex (from the RMT PC tool), then convert manually to .atr (XBOOT or MAKEATR dos tools). Then open SIO2PC (another dos tool) to send the .atr to the real Atari. Wait for the loading....especially this line of actions could be 'short cut'.