Gury Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Probably not. Somebody else would have bought it. The Atari intellectual property has always been worth something and still is today. I doubt Infogrames would put it in a trash can. It's ***certainly*** worth more than Commodore intellectual property - which may be just a name, if it even exists today. I don't think so. There was the video game crash of 1983 and nobody except Tramiel wanted to buy it (btw it's an irony that a slayer became a saviour). Still, it's symptomatic that C64 survived the crash with ease and even flourished. It only proved how strong Commodore had been. I don't think it was the case. In our country, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC were as popular as C64 was. Atari was considered special and of the best quality, in computer clubs and magazines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 43 - KNIGHT ORC C64 C64 The C64 version has nice and colourful graphics. On Atari there is only text...Yeap, that's all. C64 crushes Atari again. ATARI ATARI Oh bless, that's a bit unfortunate Though if you feel the need to compare Level 9s graphics adventures you'll find that more than a few didn't feature any graphics on the A8 version.. Maybe something to do with the itty-bitty capacity of the drives ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 It's neither embarrassment nor a valid comparison. Comparing a text game to a graphics game is apples and oranges. Most of the other screenshots are valid, however. If that's not a valid comparision then you need some of the special glasses I've got reserved for members of this thread.. So.. This is to be your new whine, "mummy, but it hasn't got graphics!"... Isn't that kind of the entire point of this.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) It's neither embarrassment nor a valid comparison. Comparing a text game to a graphics game is apples and oranges. Sorry, but it IS the same game. It's a graphics Adventure where the graphics has been removed for the A8 version. It's the essential spot of that game. Analogy: You know a screw is somehow a nail (graphics) and the thread (game mechanics).... Remove the nail off the screw and you get a useless thread Knight Orc uses 132 lines high graphics. This makes everything possible on the A8. And, even if a full CPU using kernal was used at this range, the parser would have been faster than the C64's . Ok, I stand corrected. What a fantastic way to compare two computers. Run the game with graphics on one, and run text on the other, then conclude the graphics "suck" on the one with text-only. Ok, you win. My hat is off to you. Point taken. The Atari sucks. Everybody feel better? Don't get so defensive young lad.. There's a reason why Level 9 decided not to go with graphics on Knight Orc (and many others).. Quite why I don't know personally, but I'm sure a perfectly rational business decision was made at the time.. Probably, given it was 1987 (in Knight Orcs case anyway) there was feck all left of an Atari market for it, and possibly they'd just received a letter from Atarian63 telling them Golden Era was over, in case they hadn't already noticed.. Anyway.. It's fair.. The same game, the same publisher, the same developer.. It's interesting to see some of these attrocities.. Though I'd love to know the rationale behind it, though of course everyone here would know far better than any rational and plausible explanation there might be.. Edited October 14, 2009 by andym00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 And one more thing, the substantial price drop (before Tramiel bought ATARI) didn't help at all and ATARI went into bankruptcy anyway. Atari never went bankrupt, wow your info is always wrong. Here is another kicker for you. Commodore did, Also Atari outlasted Commodore. Only because Tramiel (father of C64) bought it at the last moment. So, you should thank him nicely Funny that you like to dismiss things that don't fit your non real world view. Atari had so many things in IP commodore could not dream of. Thousands of patents for instance. Many companies including Sega had to pay Atari under Jack. I think it was $50mil from Sega alone. Noo that's not worth a thing.. I do thank Jack for many years of fun! :D It depends which division you're talking about, but I suspect it was mostly the arcade division that held the Top Trump patents (certainly from the last time I went hunting), which you (home computers and console divisions) waved goodbye to when Warner split Atari up and Namco bought the arcade division, so it's entirely plausible the Atari carcass ended up paying Namco for old Atari Arcade patents Hmmm, would be interesting to know where all those patents ended up, and whether there was some frantic shuffling of papers and patent reassignment before Namco got it's mitts on the Arcade Division.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 I don't think so. There was the video game crash of 1983 and nobody except Tramiel wanted to buy it (btw it's an irony that a slayer became a saviour). Still, it's symptomatic that C64 survived the crash with ease and even flourished. It only proved how strong Commodore had been. I don't think it was the case. In our country, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC were as popular as C64 was. Because the crash was in America so, whilst we felt a few after shocks and those paying attention probably noticed the shift in what was coming over from the epicentre, the trouble pretty much passed us by because we generated a large amount of home grown software. But you're reinforcing Rockford's point, the C64 held it's own pretty well here too, so Commodore must have been strong in the US to be able to put aside the resources to maintain that in the UK market. (In 1983, Amstrad were still a year away from releasing the first Amstrad CPC so they're not relevant to when Rockford was talking about.) Atari was considered special and of the best quality, in computer clubs and magazines. That depends very much on who you were talking to, for example when i returned my first 800XL to Dixons because it was throwing up a red screen and refusing to start, the assistant immediately swapped it out and was surprisingly candid when he admitted that they'd had a significant number of units back after the Christmas rush with the same problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gury Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 That depends very much on who you were talking to, for example when i returned my first 800XL to Dixons because it was throwing up a red screen and refusing to start, the assistant immediately swapped it out and was surprisingly candid when he admitted that they'd had a significant number of units back after the Christmas rush with the same problem. Bad luck. We had no problems at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 That depends very much on who you were talking to, for example when i returned my first 800XL to Dixons because it was throwing up a red screen and refusing to start, the assistant immediately swapped it out and was surprisingly candid when he admitted that they'd had a significant number of units back after the Christmas rush with the same problem. Bad luck. We had no problems at all. Exactly, it depended who you spoke to as to their opinions of Atari; most of the groups and clubs locally to me didn't look at the A8 as being "special and of the best quality" and saw it as just another contender, one that had a few issues with reliability because nearly half the A8 users at the time had bounced off the same problems i'd had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 I think the first batch of XLs were dodgy... the shop that got mine told me the first one in didn't work, so I had to wait another week for a replacement. That aside, pre-XE Atari gear was for the most part top-notch. Once Tramiels took over, it took a dive - but at least they had the sense to retain proper shielding and not resort to coated cardboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 It's neither embarrassment nor a valid comparison. Comparing a text game to a graphics game is apples and oranges. Sorry, but it IS the same game. It's a graphics Adventure where the graphics has been removed for the A8 version. It's the essential spot of that game. Analogy: You know a screw is somehow a nail (graphics) and the thread (game mechanics).... Remove the nail off the screw and you get a useless thread Knight Orc uses 132 lines high graphics. This makes everything possible on the A8. And, even if a full CPU using kernal was used at this range, the parser would have been faster than the C64's . Ok, I stand corrected. What a fantastic way to compare two computers. Run the game with graphics on one, and run text on the other, then conclude the graphics "suck" on the one with text-only. Ok, you win. My hat is off to you. Point taken. The Atari sucks. Everybody feel better? Don't get so defensive young lad.. There's a reason why Level 9 decided not to go with graphics on Knight Orc (and many others).. Quite why I don't know personally, but I'm sure a perfectly rational business decision was made at the time.. Probably, given it was 1987 (in Knight Orcs case anyway) there was feck all left of an Atari market for it, and possibly they'd just received a letter from Atarian63 telling them Golden Era was over, in case they hadn't already noticed.. Anyway.. It's fair.. The same game, the same publisher, the same developer.. It's interesting to see some of these attrocities.. Though I'd love to know the rationale behind it, though of course everyone here would know far better than any rational and plausible explanation there might be.. take the 6502 parser, press compile, save it on master disc and go into duplication. oh, don't forget to set the "graphics_off = 1" flag. they do not have even taken the Pawn route in taking the c64 gfx and turn them into 4 col gfx by simple leaving out the $d800ff. I am sure it was the fastest way of putting the games on market. 10% afford... Andy... rational points... maybe RAM constraints, 127kb discs vs 180kb etc etc etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Nothing to stop them doing a double-sided 88K disk. Probably more a case of catering to a 32K or 48K RAM config, combined with a CBF'd attitude to doing the graphics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 take the 6502 parser, press compile, save it on master disc and go into duplication. oh, don't forget to set the "graphics_off = 1" flag. they do not have even taken the Pawn route in taking the c64 gfx and turn them into 4 col gfx by simple leaving out the $d800ff. I am sure it was the fastest way of putting the games on market. 10% afford... Andy... rational points... maybe RAM constraints, 127kb discs vs 180kb etc etc etc... Maybe the person who created the master was a rabid c64 frothing at the mouth fanboy with Jack Tramiel pants on and deliberately sabotaged the final master disk/tape Judging by the screenshot Rockford posted and it mentioning only saving to RAM, was it possible there was only a tape version for the A8, which might explain it.. Anyway, since the entire thread was about comparing games I do think it has some validity here, beyond arousing the heckles of the native population Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 sure it is a valid comparison... same game, same publisher... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?MENU=8&VERSION_ID=2813 sold on tape and disc, packshot is from the disc version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 .. Maybe something to do with the itty-bitty capacity of the drives ? Hmmm, I never realized, but indeed (it's another point of comparing the A8 v C64) the standard C64 floppys can carry more data. IIRC the c64 ones can contain 170 kB and the A8 ones are 90 kB (SD) or 130 kB (DD); only the later drives / floppys could handle 260 kB (HD) ones...or was this just because of newer diskdrives reading both sides at once (double head)? IIRC the majority of the A8 games were distributed on SD floppys. This might clarify a number of 'mishappenings', like adventures without gfx, and another striking thing: Platform games always have smaller levels on A8 games vs. C64 games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 'til 87 level9 adventures had gfx... and 80kb drive capacity is a constraint imho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 (edited) sure it is a valid comparison... same game, same publisher... Actually looking around out of curiosity now, I can't find any pictures of other 8bit versions with graphics, the only ones that seemed to feature graphics being the Amiga/ST/PC (and 64 obviously) versions, and the mentioned of Knight Orc being the first game developed with their new system, whatever that actually was or was to become.. Edited October 14, 2009 by andym00 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analmux Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Up till now I only remember ONE adventure WITH graphics (but don't ask what kind of gfx): http://atari.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=4562 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteD Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 .. Maybe something to do with the itty-bitty capacity of the drives ? Hmmm, I never realized, but indeed (it's another point of comparing the A8 v C64) the standard C64 floppys can carry more data. IIRC the c64 ones can contain 170 kB and the A8 ones are 90 kB (SD) or 130 kB (DD); only the later drives / floppys could handle 260 kB (HD) ones...or was this just because of newer diskdrives reading both sides at once (double head)? IIRC the majority of the A8 games were distributed on SD floppys. This might clarify a number of 'mishappenings', like adventures without gfx, and another striking thing: Platform games always have smaller levels on A8 games vs. C64 games. Apart from the fact that according to some A8 people on this thread nobody actually owned a floppy drive for the C64 Admittedly they weren't as popular as for A8 and most games only came on tape and arcade style games especially were single load. Why there's a difference in level sizes etc I'd guess is more likely from targeting 48k machines and leaving the game as single load. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 http://www.atarimani...VERSION_ID=2813 sold on tape and disc, packshot is from the disc version. I love the text "The graphics are marvelous - bright detailed and a totally new style from that of previous adventures".. And then what appears to be the stuck on sticker, "This version is text-only" but you do get a better text-interpreter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Up till now I only remember ONE adventure WITH graphics (but don't ask what kind of gfx): http://atari.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=4562 Na, what about Dallas Quest Mask of the Sun Serpant Star Neverneding Story the Pawn The Guild of Thieves Jinxter ... and these are "Tier 1" adventures... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 http://www.atarimani...VERSION_ID=2813 sold on tape and disc, packshot is from the disc version. I love the text "The graphics are marvelous - bright detailed and a totally new style from that of previous adventures".. And then what appears to be the stuck on sticker, "This version is text-only" but you do get a better text-interpreter hahaha... but happens nowadays, too... but I am not allowed to talk about that here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym00 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 Apart from the fact that according to some A8 people on this thread nobody actually owned a floppy drive for the C64 Admittedly they weren't as popular as for A8 and most games only came on tape and arcade style games especially were single load. Why there's a difference in level sizes etc I'd guess is more likely from targeting 48k machines and leaving the game as single load. Best use/waste of excess disk space (and the other side) was the US version of Activisions Transformers in '86 simply because they wazzed up an entire disk side on the intro alone, with all the streamed speech and slide-show Though the game was utter utter utter tripe of the highest order.. But were people still targetting 48K Ataris in '87 ? Or were the 64K machines not the default platform by then ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barnacle boy Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 It's neither embarrassment nor a valid comparison. Comparing a text game to a graphics game is apples and oranges. Sorry, but it IS the same game. It's a graphics Adventure where the graphics has been removed for the A8 version. It's the essential spot of that game. Ok, I stand corrected. What a fantastic way to compare two computers. Run the game with graphics on one, and run text on the other, then conclude the graphics "suck" on the one with text-only. Ok, you win. My hat is off to you. Point taken. The Atari sucks. Everybody feel better? Your post implies that you're under the impression that Rockford somehow put the Atari version into a 'text only' mode. Apparently, the Atari version simply does not have any graphics. It is the same game on two different platforms. One features graphics; the other does not. As emkay has pointed out - blame the guys responsible for the Atari version, not Rockford. Also, compare Rockford's comparison of the same game across the two platforms, and then think about Atarian63's earlier attempt to draw a false comparison between two completely different games in different genres (under the loose heading of 'soccer games'), and then think about who is really resorting to invalid comparisons. You really are trolling here. Nothing but trolling More selective pics. more trolling.. more insults and trolling. Atarian63, why do I get the feeling that if anyone kept labelling you a troll the way you're slapping the label onto others, you'd be hammering away at that report button as fervently as a certain someone kept hitting the +1 button on every one of Frenchman's posts several pages ago? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteD Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 But were people still targetting 48K Ataris in '87 ? Or were the 64K machines not the default platform by then ? No idea just guessing really, I'm sure some A8 fan with all the sales figures tattooed onto their bodies could tell us I'd think though with it's advanced build quality there'd be a lot of 48k machines still going strong. Ok, huge amount of sarcasm aimed at the poor A8 there but I got to the point in the end Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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